Untitled gouache (Illustration for Tristan Tzara's "Le fruit permis") 1956

Sonia Delaunay made this gouache, an illustration for Tristan Tzara's "Le fruit permis," with flat shapes. I’m imagining Delaunay, there in her studio, thinking about simultaneity and how shapes speak to each other. There is a square of red and one of black, and these semi-circles of blue and green are not quite matching up. I love the not-quite-ness of it; it’s like two people almost agreeing. It's easy to see how she was interested in Orphism and the idea of abstracting from the real world. How freeing it must have felt to escape from representation! Each shape is almost like a word or a musical note. It feels like she must have kept going back to this, thinking “What if I try this?” I like to think of her feeling a kind of freedom, making something new and modern and alive. I think of the way she inspired other artists to break from tradition. You can see her legacy in the work of so many others.