Harmony and Dissonance

Frantisek Kupka, Amorpha, Fugue in Two Colors, 1912, oil on canvas.

This exhibition of 80 works of art by 26 artists from 30 museums and private collections is a dazzling success this holiday season and should not be missed. It is the first effort hosted by the new director of the Guggenheim Museum, Mariet Westermann. Sheis a serious art history scholar as well as a senior manager who ran the Institute of Fine Arts in New York and opened the Abu Dhabi campus for NYU where the Guggenheim is also planning a $200 million dollar museum on Saadiyat Island. I had the privilege of studying the works of Rembrandt with her in a seminar, and she knew the details about all 2,600 of his works!

Eighteen scholars have contributed to the glorious catalog with color illustrations describing a movement aptly named Orphism by a Parisian poet, Apollinaire, in 1912 referencing the Greek poet Orpheus, the son of the god Apollo who was known for his ethereal love of music and art. One scholar called this collection a kaleidoscope of dynamic works of art which blend optical and sensory perceptions in two and three dimensions.[1] Her idea was that Paris in 1912 was a kinetic city filled with color, emotion and salons celebrating the peaceful time before the onslaught of World War I. With the invention of photography in 1840, the canvas was now open for artistic interpretation and theories of color, movement and perception evolved at that time.

Robert Delaunay, Circular Forms, 1930. Oil on canvas.

Two of the greatest proponents of this movement were the couple, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, who both were swept up in what some called the Belle Epoque in Paris. With the construction of both the Eiffel Tower and Great Wheel for the 1900 Paris Exhibition, we see how artists used these images to convey exotic colors with a fusion of multisensory images and emotions. This image by artist Marc Chagall captures both of the exciting monuments in Paris.

Marc Chagall, The Great Wheel. 1911-1912, oil on canvas.

Sonia Delaunay was a lover of the ballet which also came to Paris from Russia at this time. Her interpretation of the interface between dance movement and artistic expression is present in this work known as the dance of the bulls. It is a bit of a visual tango of color and forms across her canvas.

Sonia Delaunay, Bull Bullier, 1913.

Bellara Huang, a curatorial assistant at the Guggenheim, wrote an essay highlighting the inclusion of sculptors who also embraced the dynamism of the Orphic movement in their works. The artist, Alexander Archipenko, did this work in three dimensions, and it reflects his training in Kiev, Ukraine before his arrival in Paris at the turn of the century. At this time, the scientist, Isaac Newton, was also publishing his theory that color is a product of light divided like the rainbow into a merger of seven colors, some of which we see in this work.[2]

Alexander Archipenko, 1913-14, polychrome on metal.

Professor Michael Leja from the University of Pennsylvania, Department of Art History, wrote in his catalog essay that the movement of Orphism also had followers in the United States.[3] One work here is by Marsden Hartley, and it shows that by 1913 through the infamous Armory Show in New York City on Park Avenue in which European art dealers brought their colorful works for sale, American painters embraced the warm colors and open forms in works such as these.

Marsden Hartley, Abstraction, 1914, oil on canvas.

My favorite work in the show is called Electric Prisms by Sonia Delaunay. It moves with all kinds of color and engages the viewer from all directions. It is a classic for visitors to enjoy in this amazing installation at the Guggenheim Museum in New York this holiday season.