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![LʼÉquipe de Cardiff [The Cardiff Team]](http://www.nationalgalleries.org/media_collection/6/GMA 2942.jpg)
- © L & M Services B.V. Amsterdam 200400615
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![L'Équipe de Cardiff [The Cardiff Team]](http://www.nationalgalleries.org/media_collection/6/GMA%202942.jpg)
LʼÉquipe de Cardiff [The Cardiff Team]
Robert Delaunay
- © L & M Services B.V. Amsterdam 200400615
Robert Delaunay
L'Équipe de Cardiff [The Cardiff Team]1922 - 1923On Display | GALLERY OF MODERN ART
In 1912 Delaunay began the first of several versions of 'The Cardiff Team'. The motif derived from a newspaper photograph of a Cardiff-Paris rugby match, which showed players jumping for the ball. Delaunay added Paris's famous Ferris wheel and an 'Astra' billboard, which advertises an aircraft construction company. The letters on the hoarding to the right derive from the artist's own name. The Eiffel Tower features in many of Delaunay's paintings, as the artist regarded it as the archetypal symbol of modernity. It is here seen emerging above the fragment of his name.
Glossary Open
Modernity
The state of embracing the most up-to-date ideas and techniques. In art, the notion is often associated with the 19th century French poet Charles Baudelaire who encouraged artists to represent the modern world based on their lived experience.
Motif
A distinctive element in a work of art or design.
Details
- Accession no. GMA 2942
- Medium Oil and tempera on canvas
- Size 146.80 x 114.20 cm
- Credit Purchased 1985
Robert Delaunay (French, 1885 - 1941)
Delaunay was born in Paris into an aristocratic family. Largely self-taught, he was apprenticed to a firm of theatrical set builders from 1902 to 1904. Delaunay's early paintings were in an impressionist style, but in 1906 he began experimenting with the abstract qualities of colour. He was interested in the interaction of colour and movement, partly inspired by the work of Seurat. By 1910 Delaunay's work was showing the influence of cubism and, together with his wife Sonia, he became the leading practitioner of 'Simultanism', an offshoot of cubism and futurism. Delaunay was the first French artist to produce completely abstract pictures, at the end of 1912.
Glossary Open
Abstract art
Art in which there is no attempt to represent anything existing in the world, particularly used of the 20th century onwards. ‘Abstraction’ refers to the process of making images that may in part derive from the visible world but which are reduced to basic formal elements.
Cubism
A style of painting originated by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso in the first two decades of the 20th century. Instead of painting a figure or object from a fixed position they represented it from multiple viewpoints.
Futurism
An Italian literary and artistic movement that began in 1909 led by the writer Filippo Tommasso Marinetti. It rejected the culture of the past and embraced new technology, emphasising speed and dynamism. It used the Cubist techniques of fragmentation and shifting viewpoints to represent these ideals in paint. Futurism also had a political aspect and was closely associated with Italian Fascism.
Impressionism
An influential style of painting that originated in France in the 1870s with artists such as Claude Monet, Pierre-August Renoir and Alfred Sisley. They were interested in capturing the changing effects of light, frequently exploring this through landscape scenes painted in the open air.
Simultanism
The representation of multiple events in one image, associated with Cubism and Futurism. The notion was embraced by Robert and Sonia Delaunay, who sought to achieve dynamism through combinations of colours. Their work is known as Orphism or Orphic Cubism.