What is Orphism?

The main appeal of Orphism is to charm the senses. The paintings were constructed with overlapping planes of contrasting colors usually arranged in circular discs. The colour combinations were based on the laws of simultaneous contrast of colors that was developed by French chemist Michel-Eugene Chevreul in the 19th century.

According to Chevreul,colours like blue and yellow,green and magenta,red and cyan are complementary. These are colours that lie opposite each other on the VIBGYOR scale,better known as the seven colours in the rainbow. According to Chevreul’s study and several after him,if one stares long enough at a dominant colour like red,green or blue and then looks at a white space,one will see that a complementary colour will appear in its place. This happens because the retina,after staring long at the colour,gets tired and can only reproduce the complementary colour to the brain.

Artists like Delaunay and his artist wife Sonia,Marcel Duchamp,Fernand Leger,Francis Picabia,and Franz Kupka S wanted to study and then exploit this scientific theory through their art. Deluanay’s paintings are characterised by a vortex of colour which may appear at first to be spontaneously and randomly applied on the canvas. Closer scrutiny reveals however that blue is placed near yellow,red near cyan and green near magenta. Patterns and combinations of these colours have formed the crux of the subsequent years of abstraction,and to some extent Cubism. Unfortunately,the Orphist group split up at the onset of World War I. Painters had either to serve in the war or they went underground. The movement disbanded but its long-lasting impact in later abstract art movements,is indisputable.

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