Political Drama – (Robert Delaunay) ◄ Previous Next ►

Artist: Robert Delaunay

Date: 1914

Size: 104 x 84 cm

Technique: Oil On Board

A man and a woman seem to float against a background of nested, concentric rings in this abstracted, vertical painting. The center of the rings is just above the center of the composition. The rings are further divided into quadrants, so each ring is a different color at the top left, top right, bottom left, and bottom right. The rings are in shades of lemon and golden yellow, sky, slate, and cobalt blue, lilac and violet purple, red, mint green, and white. Where the rings get close to the edges of the composition, they become more muted in tone. The woman is to our right of center. Created in areas of flat color, she has a royal blue, feathered hat and blond hair. Closer inspection reveals that her brown dress or jacket is made of a piece of paper collaged to the painting. A dash of vivid blue suggests a skirt, and a black smudge there is difficult to interpret. To our left of center, a man wearing a white shirt and black jacket seems to fall backward, toward the center of the circles. One arm, amethyst purple, is flung up and that hand is red. A curving line, like a wide, flattened U, encloses the circles along the bottom edge of the composition along its width, and the circles extend off the corners to the sides and at the top. The artist signed the work in black block letters across the bottom center: “ROBERT DELAUNAY.”