Artists like Delaunay and his artist wife Sonia, Marcel Duchamp, Fernand Leger, Francis Picabia, and Franz Kupka S wanted to study and then exploit this scientific theory through their art. Deluanay’s paintings are characterised by a vortex of colour which may appear at first to be spontaneously and randomly applied on the canvas. Closer scrutiny reveals however that blue is placed near yellow, red near cyan and green near magenta. Patterns and combinations of these colours have formed the crux of the subsequent years of abstraction, and to some extent Cubism.

Unfortunately, the Orphist group split up at the onset of World War I. Painters had either to serve in the war or they went underground. The movement disbanded but its long-lasting impact in later abstract art movements, is indisputable.

Demystify art, e-mail georgina.
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