This was a movement that found significance in the symphony of sensations that colours are able to stimulate when crafted together. Because modernist artists no longer wanted to be confined to naturalism they were free to experiment with the effect of the relationships of colour. This involved the colour theory of contrasting and complementary colours and the optimum placement of these colours together to enhance hues. Delaunay, a key Orphist artist was able to develop these colour techniques from his studies of a chemist, Michael-Eugene Chevreul’s treatise, On the Law of the Simultaneous Contrast of Colours. This treatise dealt with the concept that a colour is observed differently according to its surrounding colours. An example of a modern work based upon the use of the application of colour techniques is Homage to Bleriot by Robert Delaunay. This work contains various circular forms all made up of highly organised bright block colours. The colours of these circular forms, which are mostly primary, are surrounded by a background of opposing colours such as a yellow, green and red image surrounded by blue, red and green respectively. It is this complete contrast which illuminates the effect of the colours to a point where they are so much more successful in their specific function when juxtaposed in this purposeful way. It is not only this illumination that the use of these colour techniques create but a pictorial space. A depth is created by the advancing and receding of colours according to their characteristics. These techniques had not been used in traditional representational art and are another example of how these abstract artists redefined accepted artist
This was a movement that found significance in the symphony of sensations that colours are able to stimulate when crafted together. Because modernist artists no longer wanted to be confined to naturalism they were free to experiment with the effect of the relationships of colour. This involved the colour theory of contrasting and complementary colours and the optimum placement of these colours together to enhance hues. Delaunay, a key Orphist artist was able to develop these colour techniques from his studies of a chemist, Michael-Eugene Chevreul’s treatise, On the Law of the Simultaneous Contrast of Colours. This treatise dealt with the concept that a colour is observed differently according to its surrounding colours. An example of a modern work based upon the use of the application of colour techniques is Homage to Bleriot by Robert Delaunay. This work contains various circular forms all made up of highly organised bright block colours. The colours of these circular forms, which are mostly primary, are surrounded by a background of opposing colours such as a yellow, green and red image surrounded by blue, red and green respectively. It is this complete contrast which illuminates the effect of the colours to a point where they are so much more successful in their specific function when juxtaposed in this purposeful way. It is not only this illumination that the use of these colour techniques create but a pictorial space. A depth is created by the advancing and receding of colours according to their characteristics. These techniques had not been used in traditional representational art and are another example of how these abstract artists redefined accepted artist