Orphism (art) - Legacy

Legacy

Orphism as a movement was short-lived, essentially coming to an end before World War I. In spite of the use of the term the works categorized as Orphism were so different that they defy attempts to place them in a single category. Artists intermittently referred to as Orphists by Apollinaire, such as Léger, Picabia, Duchamp and Picasso, independently created new categories that could hardly be classified as Orphic. The term Orphism most obviously embraced paintings by František Kupka, Robert Delaunay and Sonia Delaunay, if limited to implications imposed by color, light, and the expression of non-representational compositions. Even Robert Delaunay thought this description misrepresented his intentions, though his temporary classification as Orphic had proved successful. The American painters Patrick Henry Bruce and Arthur Burdett Frost, two of Delaunay’s pupils, strove to create a similar art-form circa 1912. The Synchromists Morgan Russell and Stanton Macdonald-Wright wrote their own manifestos in an attempt to distance themselves from the Orphism of Robert Delaunay, but their art at times inevitably appeared Orphic. Essentially a stylistic sub-category of Abstract art created by Apollinaire, Orphism was an elusive term from which artists included within its scope persistently attempted to detach themselves.