The City of Paris 1912

Editor: Here we have Robert Delaunay's "The City of Paris," created around 1912. It's currently hanging in the Georges Pompidou Center. The canvas is just bursting with shapes and forms—it almost feels like the city is shimmering before your eyes! What initially strikes you about this piece? Curator: Shimmering, exactly! It's as if Delaunay bottled the energy of Paris itself. For me, it’s not just a painting, but an experience—like a fragmented memory of wandering through its streets. I wonder, do you see the echoes of the Three Graces intertwined with the Eiffel Tower? Editor: Yes, now that you point it out! It’s almost like he's collapsing time, the classical with the modern, the feminine with the industrial. Why do you think he chose to merge these elements so explicitly? Curator: Perhaps he saw the modern city as a kind of continuation of these timeless ideals—beauty, harmony, grace—just manifested in steel and glass instead of flesh and stone. It's Cubism, sure, but also something more… lyrical, wouldn't you agree? Editor: Absolutely. I see the Cubism in the fractured perspectives and the Orphism with its vibrant colours. The interweaving figures soften the geometric angularity of the composition.. it keeps pulling me back in for another look. Curator: Yes, a visual feast. It's a celebration, really. Paris through rose-colored glasses – fragmented, multifaceted, and eternally captivating, dont you think? Delaunay truly captured a modern mythology. I can feel his emotional involvement! Editor: Definitely food for thought. It's incredible how much history and emotion can be packed into those seemingly simple geometric forms. Thanks for sharing your insight! Curator: My pleasure. It is a joy to see it anew through your fresh eyes and intuition, just as Delauney was bringing into art what the eye sees from different view points.