Lot Essay
Valensi is best known for promoting 'effusionist' painting, or as he prefered to call it, 'musicalism'. This was a method of systematically dividing up a picture to superimpose different aspects of the same view. It was a theory in which he explored the relationship between form, colour and sound.
These ideas took root in 1912 when he first participated with Marcel Duchamp, Albert Gleizes and Francis Picabia in the organisation of the Salon of the 'Secton d'Or'. Apollinaire described his paintings in ''Les Peintres Cubistes'' under the heading 'Orphic Cubism', which also included Picabis and Dumont. Although he preferred not to be labelled as a futurist or expressionist, there is no doubt that in terms of subject matter he shared and sought inspiration in similar themes of modernity throughout the 1920's, depicting cars, aeroplanes, and trains.
These ideas took root in 1912 when he first participated with Marcel Duchamp, Albert Gleizes and Francis Picabia in the organisation of the Salon of the 'Secton d'Or'. Apollinaire described his paintings in ''Les Peintres Cubistes'' under the heading 'Orphic Cubism', which also included Picabis and Dumont. Although he preferred not to be labelled as a futurist or expressionist, there is no doubt that in terms of subject matter he shared and sought inspiration in similar themes of modernity throughout the 1920's, depicting cars, aeroplanes, and trains.