Saint-Séverin
See Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1950-134-42b, for reverse
Robert Delaunay, French, 1885 - 1941
Date:
1909Medium:
Oil on canvasDimensions:
38 × 27 3/4 inches (96.5 × 70.5 cm)Curatorial Department:
European PaintingObject Location:
1950-134-42aCredit Line:
The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950
1909Medium:
Oil on canvasDimensions:
38 × 27 3/4 inches (96.5 × 70.5 cm)Curatorial Department:
European PaintingObject Location:
Currently not on view
Accession Number:1950-134-42aCredit Line:
The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950
Label:
Between the spring of 1909 and early 1910, Saint-Séverin, a small thirteenth-century Gothic church near Robert Delaunay's studio in Paris, inspired a series of seven paintings by the artist. In these works, he explored the interaction of light, color, and space in the cavernous church interior and its architecture of twisting columns and pointed arches to produce a kaleidoscopic sensation of shifting perspectives. Transforming the prismatic color he observed refracted through the church's stained-glass windows into images of forms dematerialized by light, Delaunay arrived at a language of visual fragmentation that was much more expressive than other variations of Cubism then taking hold among advanced artists in Paris.
Between the spring of 1909 and early 1910, Saint-Séverin, a small thirteenth-century Gothic church near Robert Delaunay's studio in Paris, inspired a series of seven paintings by the artist. In these works, he explored the interaction of light, color, and space in the cavernous church interior and its architecture of twisting columns and pointed arches to produce a kaleidoscopic sensation of shifting perspectives. Transforming the prismatic color he observed refracted through the church's stained-glass windows into images of forms dematerialized by light, Delaunay arrived at a language of visual fragmentation that was much more expressive than other variations of Cubism then taking hold among advanced artists in Paris.
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