Homage to Blériot

Robert Delaunays Homage to Bleriot from around 1914 is a lithographic crayon drawing with stumping on ivory wove transfer paper that pays tribute to Louis Bleriot, the aviator who made the first flight across the English Channel in 1909 and who became a symbol of the modern age of aviation and technological progress that Delaunay and his contemporaries the Futurists and the Cubists celebrated in their work. The Homage to Bleriot is one of a series of works in which Delaunay used the circular forms of the Sun, the Moon, and the airplane propeller as the basis for compositions of Simultanist color, in which complementary colors are placed side by side to create the sensation of movement and vibration that Delaunay believed was the perceptual equivalent of modern experience. The lithographic crayon medium, with its capacity for broad tonal areas and subtle gradations achieved through stumping, allows Delaunay to create the contrast between complementary colors that is the foundation of his Simultanist approach to color, in which the eye perceives the interaction of adjacent colors as a dynamic event rather than a static arrangement. The date of around 1914 places this drawing in the period when Delaunay was developing the Simultanist theory that would inform his work for the rest of his career, and the Homage to Bleriot represents one of the most accomplished expressions of his belief that modern technology could be the subject of painting as worthy as the traditional subjects of mythology and religion.

Delaunays Homage to Bleriot is a key work in the development of Simultanism and Orphism, and its influence on the development of abstract painting extends through the 20th century. The drawing demonstrates that modern technology could be the subject of serious artistic investigation and that color interaction could create the sensation of movement and vibration.

A c.1914 lithographic crayon drawing with stumping by Delaunay paying tribute to aviator Louis Bleriot, using circular forms of propellers and celestial bodies as the basis for Simultanist complementary color interaction that creates dynamic movement and vibration on ivory transfer paper.