Robert Delaunay
1885-1941French painter, born in Paris.
Orphism was an abstract, cubist influenced painting style
developed by Robert and Sonia Delaunay around 1912
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkzACPGZcVk
Delaunay’s work developed into abstraction and he made
numerous compositions with circular discs and colour
rhythms, sometimes in low relief.
1938, Rhythm n°1, Decoration for the Salon des Tuileries (middle)
'Endless Rhythm' 1934 (left)
Circular Forms (Formes circulaires), 1930 (above)
The coloured discs strung out diagonally across the picture are so arranged that each one leads on to the next and the movement is directed back again into the picture at the
two ends. Perhaps because of this infinitely looping effect, his wife Sonia considered Endless Rhythm to be the most appropriate title. The year after painting this, Delaunay was
commissioned to paint murals for the Aeronautics pavilion at the 1937 Paris International Exhibition; the resulting compositions included discs, rings and colour rhythms on a
huge scale.
Roy de Maistre
Australian painter and designer.
In 1919 he devised a colour–music theory that allied the
colours of the spectrum to musical scales.
The paintings are characterised by simplified forms, large areas
of flat paint and heightened, non-representational colour.
Further experiments in 1919 led de Maistre to produce Australia's
first abstract paintings: only one documented example is known – Rhythmic
Composition in Yellow Green Minor
Rhythmic Composition in Yellow Green Minor (left)
Arrested phrase from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in red major
ENLARGE 1/1 (right)
(Colour music) (circa 1934) (bottom)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1lQCTunGxg
Bridget Riley
born 1931 in London.
In 1960 she evolved a style in which she explored the dynamic potentialities
of optical phenomena. These so-called 'Op-art' pieces, such asFall, 1963
(below) (Tate Gallery), produce a disorienting physical effect on the eye.
Op art was a major development of painting in the 1960s that used
geometric forms to create optical effects.
The effects created by op art ranged from the subtle, to the disturbing
and disorienting.
Op painting used a framework of purely geometric forms as the basis
for its effects and also drew on colour theory and the physiology and
psychology of perception. Leading figures were Bridget Riley, Jesus
Rafael Soto, and Victor Vasarely.
‘I try to organise a field of visual energy which accumulates until it reaches maximum tension’, Riley said
of this work. From 1961 to 1964 she worked with the contrast of black and white, occasionally
introducing tonal scales of grey. In Fall, a single perpendicular curve is repeated to create a field of
varying optical frequencies. Though in the upper part a gentle relaxed swing prevails, the curve is
rapidly compressed towards the bottom of the painting. The composition verges on the edge of
disintegration without the structure ever breaking.
Hesitate is one of a group of
black and white paintings made
by Riley in 1964 in which the
titles imply emotional tension, for
example Disturbance, Chill, Loss
and Pause. The shapes were
drawn first using a compass, and
with templates for the larger
ellipses; the smaller ones were
drawn freehand. The shades of
grey were judged by eye. Pause,
1964 (private collection) is
similar in design to Hesitate, but
with the ellipses forming a
vertical line and the changes
of tone reversed. Pause itself
develops an idea in an earlier
painting Movement in Squares,
1961 (Arts Council Collection),
but with the rectangles replaced
by ellipses and circles, and with
the addition of the changes of
tone.