ROBERT DELAUNAY AND THE EMERGENCE OF ABSTRACTION IN GERMAN ART, 1910-1920 Although Cubist paintings by Braque, Picasso, Le Fauconnier and Metzinger were shown extensively in Düsseldorf, Cologne, Berlin and Munich, and caused a great stir among German artists, their influence was less pervasive than it was elsewhere in Europe. The Expressionist artists of Die Brücke in Berlin had earlier absorbed the example of van Gogh, Gauguin and Fauvism, but their temperamental inclination towards primitivism and subjective emotionalism made them less receptive to the intellectual discipline and formal structures of analytical Cubism, even if both movements had several common sources, such as their interest in tribal art. The artists of Der Blaue Reiter in Munich, however, felt a greater attraction to Cubism. The second exhibition of the Neue Kunstlervereinigung, which opened in Munich in 1910, was the first major international exhibition of the European avant-garde, and the works of Picasso, Braque, Derain, Le Fauconnier and Vlaminck made a powerful impression. Articles on Cubism appeared in Der Blaue Reiter almanac (see sale, Christie's, New York, American and Modern Prints and Illustrated Books, Nov. 6, 1996, lot 152); indeed, August Macke made his first Cubist drawings after seeing an illustration in the almanac of Picasso's Femme à la guitare assise au piano, 1911. (C. Zervos, vol. II, no. 237; coll. Národnie Galerie, Prague) Nevertheless, Der Blaue Reiter artists rejected the theoretical and non-sensual element in Cubism, and were dissatisfied with the restrained and somber use of color in the paintings of Braque and Picasso. Over the course of the next several years, the paintings of Robert Delaunay emerged as a significant catalyst in Der Blaue Reiter circles. One of the second wave of French Cubists, Delaunay had his own ideas about the implications of the work of Cézanne, Braque and Picasso, and his paintings met with an enthusiastic reception, such as had previously eluded the work of the pioneering Cubists. Whereas Picasso and Braque in the early stages of Cubism had been attracted to the structural element in Cézanne's painting, Delaunay was drawn to the late master's achievements as a colorist, which were formulated in Impressionism. Delaunay's use of color in his first important series of paintings, the Gothic interiors of the cathedral of St.-Severin, done in 1909, is still subdued and limited in range. One version was purchased by Adolf Erbslöh, and was reproduced in Der Blaue Reiter almanac. In the series of Eiffel Tower paintings, done in the following year, Delaunay began to experiment with overlapping, transparent planes of pure color, resulting in the ground-breaking series of Fenêtres, 1910-1912, abstract views of the city seen through open windows, in which no objects are discernible. In his essay Sur le lumière, Delaunay postulated that depth is the fundamental aspect of physical reality as perceived by the eye, and stated that the rhythmic simultaneity of light creates a sense of depth. This may be expressed in painting by the use of harmony and rhythm in color. He equated painting, based on the transparency of color, with musical tones. Delaunay's friend, the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, dubbed the term 'Orphism' for his use of pure, prismatic color. Derived from Orpheus, the ill-fated poet and singer of Greek mythology who traveled to the underworld to retrieve his beloved Eurydice, the term was also meant to suggest a striving for an unconscious and irrational experience by which the visible world is transformed into a lyrical creation. These ideas soon led Delaunay into the uncharted territory of non-objective painting. In 1912 he painted Le premier disque (formerly in the collection of Burton and Emily Tremaine; sale, Christie's, New York, Nov. 5, 1991, lot 18) beginning a series of completely non-referential paintings, the first seen in Paris, which consisted of hard-edged, evenly-spaced, concentric rings quartered precisely on perpendicular vertical and horizontal axes. Delaunay later wrote: You see: totality, ensemble of colors, opposing each other by complementarity; the others, in the center, in dissonance. I use a musical word. The experience was conclusive. No more fruit dish, no Eiffel Tower, no more streets, no more exterior views... No more copying from nature. Instead only abstract painting in color. (ed. A.A. Cohen, The New Art of Color: The Writings of Robert and Sonia Delaunay, New York, 1978, pp. 35-36) Delaunay's preoccupation with non-objective painting was brief, for in 1913 he returned to the interpretation of subject matter, and the bodies of footballers in motion are clearly readable in his L'équipe de Cardiff (coll. Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris). Delaunay's non-objective paintings, and even more importantly, his theories behind them, had a profound impact on young Der Blaue Reiter artists Paul Klee, August Macke and Franz Marc. Delaunay's paintings were frequently exhibited in Germany. Two pictures from the Fenêtres series were included in the first Der Blaue Reiter exhibition in Munich in the winter of 1911-1912, which subsequently toured Germany, and one was illustrated in the almanac. In 1912 Klee, Macke and Marc individually visited Delaunay in Paris. Klee translated Delaunay's Sur le lumière into German, which was published in Der Sturm. In January, 1913, Delaunay and Apollinaire traveled to Berlin to attend an exhibition of the artist's work at Herwarth Walden's Der Sturm gallery. The following eight lots are from the collection of Henry M. Reed, who has long held an interest in the work of Delaunay and his influence on European and American artists. Property from the Collection of HENRY M. REED

August Macke (1887-1914)

Farbenkreis

Details

August Macke (1887-1914)
Farbenkreis
stamped on the reverse 'Nachlass AUGUST MACKE'
colored wax crayons on paper
3¾ x 4 5/8in. (9.4 x 11.5cm.)
Drawn 1913-1914

Provenance

Estate of the artist

Literature

U. Heiderich, August Macke, Die Skizzenbücher, Stuttgart, 1987, p. 133, note 54 (illustrated, fig. 130, p. 1058)
U. Heiderich, August Macke: Zeichnungen Werkverzeichnis, Stuttgart, 1993, no. 2154 (illustrated, p. 595)

Lot Essay

Although August Macke probably first saw Cubist paintings in 1910 and later became interested in Italian Futurism, it was the work of Robert Delaunay that proved to be the final significant catalyst in Macke's brief career, which was cut short by death in the trenches in the second month of World War I. Macke first saw paintings by Delaunay in the 1912 Der Blaue Reiter exhibition in Munich. His patron Bernhard Koehler owned one of Delaunay's Eiffel Tower pictures, which was reproduced in Der Blaue Reiter almanac. Macke may have first met Delaunay during his fourth trip to Paris in the fall of 1912. He saw the Delaunay exhibition that Herwarth Walden assembled in 1913 at his Berlin gallery Der Sturm, which then traveled to Cologne. Delaunay and the poet/theoretician Guillaume Apollinaire toured Germany later that year, and visited Macke in Bonn.

Macke's Farbenkreis, from the artist's Sketchbook no. 60, is clearly inspired by Delaunay's Disque paintings of 1912.

In Macke's and Delaunay's pictures, concentric circles surrounding a prismatically refracted, brightly coloured nucleus, form zones or spheres of glowing colour, like the projection of a chromatic spectrum, and are divided into segments by a "hairline cross" of verticle and horizontal lines. Both pictures are as abstract in their effect as scientific illustrations of the origin and compositions of colour, and as poetic as dramatic of the birth of colours form the pure white of light. (A. Meseure, August Macke, Cologne, 1991, p. 54)

In the present work, and Farbenkreis II (gross) (coll. Stadisches Kunstmuseum, Bonn), Macke's improvisatory and exploratory approach, with its greater illusion of depth, runs counter to the more decorative character of Delaunay's Disque paintings. For neither artist did the abstractness of the disk proved to be an end in itself. In Delaunay's work the disk is eventually transformed into an optical motif, or even serving as a lens through which the subject is viewed and interpreted, as in Hommage à Blériot, 1914 (coll. Kunstmuseum, Basel). Likewise, Macke never went beyond the abstraction of the Farbenkreis pictures, and used this analysis of color and form to enrich his interpretation of subjects drawn from daily life.

In a letter dated Münster, November 5, 1979, Ursula Heiderich has confirmed the authenticity of this drawing.