Orphism: Worthy of Re-examination?

In the early 20th century, Paris was rapidly modernizing. The newly constructed Eiffel Tower dominated its skyline, casting a shadow over the entire city. At ground level, the city’s clubs and bars danced to the fast, seductive rhythms of tango, which had just arrived from South America. As Paris changed, its artists changed with it. They began adapting the visual language of cubism, which fragmented individual moments through compositions of geometric shapes, into a style that they called “simultanism,” which attempted to depict the constant, simultaneous movement that they saw in their city.

In 1912, the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire named this new movement “Orphism,” referencing the hero of Greek myth who teased open the doors to the underworld with his music and verse. Though it was not immediately accepted by the artists themselves, Appollinaire’s term spoke to the distinctive musical quality of the Orphist’s works and, eventually, it stuck. In the grand scheme of art history, the Orphists have received little recognition, especially outside of academic circles. They have largely been overshadowed by the other “-ism” suffixed movements of the 20th century, and their role in the development of later abstract art movements has been obscured. 

The Guggenheim’s exhibition, Harmony and Dissonance: Orphism in Paris, 1910–1930, which runs through March 9, argues, through over 90 works, that Orphism deserves attention and that its influence on contemporary art has largely been underestimated. It boldly pushes back against a general lack of critical and public appreciation for Orphist art, urging viewers to reassess the movement despite its past unpopularity. Harmony and Dissonance uses the Guggenheim’s iconic rotunda as a rhetorical tool, building narrative and movement from piece to piece and suggesting a sense of progression as visitors ascend the curved ramp. The space itself mirrors many of the compositions, with its sweeping curves and large, open spaces. Pieces throughout the rotunda are actually visible from any point on the ramp, which creates a sense of simultaneity between the artworks that mirrors the themes the works themselves contain.

Though all 90 works in the exhibition fit under Apollonaire’s loose definition of Orphism, they vary wildly. The paintings at the opening of the exhibition are clearly influenced by cubist works. Marcel Duchamp’s Nude (Sketch), Sad Young Man in a Train (1912) is less abstract than many of the works that appear later in the exhibition, retaining the representational aspect of cubist art. The figure of the titular sad young man is still discernible, though concealed behind layers of geometries in an almost monochromatic palette of drab browns and yellows. Though it borrows from cubism, Sad Young Man is definitely an Orphist work. Through the terse lines and shapes that make up the figures in this composition, Duchamp builds a sense of movement and tension that seems to come from all sides. The blurred background and the shifting outline of the figure’s body also suggest the movement of the train that he is riding, reflecting the persistent influence of modern technology on Orphist art. 

Higher on the ramp, the works become increasingly abstract. Paintings like Robert Delaunay’s Windows Open Simultaneously (1912) are completely severed from reality, using a similar geometric approach as Duchamp in Sad Young Man, but without any subject. The result is a kaleidoscopic jumble of shapes that clash in color and in form. Multi-colored triangles butt into one another, creating discordant combinations of greens, yellows, and purples. Though the wall text confidently asserts that the faint green triangular motif that lies behind the Euclidean mess of Windows is the Eiffel Tower, it would be unidentifiable otherwise. Without this hint as to the composition’s inspiration, its cacophony of shapes and colors evokes no particular emotion. Works like Dulaney’s Circular Forms—a composition of dartboard-like concentric circle motifs in jubilant colors—are more visually cohesive than Windows Open Simultaneously but similarly convey little substance. At first glance, Circular Forms seems vibrant and alive. The gold and yellow rings of the circles play off of the painting’s baby blue background, creating movement within the piece. This dynamism exists only as visual excitement. It doesn’t push or orient the piece as a whole, leaving it a tangle of shapes without direction or theme. 

Even amongst these uninteresting, nonrepresentational compositions, there lie a few gems. Albert Gleizes’s Spanish Dancer (1916) combines the more representative aspirations of cubism with the purely geometric values of Orphism, depicting an ambiguous figure over a background crisscrossed with lines and squiggles. As opposed to many of the other Orphist works, which deal purely in solid colors, Spanish Dancer includes floral textures, almost resembling a collage. The flat colors that Gleizes does use are uniformly muted, tying the entire composition together. Furthermore, the dynamism that he conjures through the dancer’s geometric figure gives this piece a clearly directed Orphistic sense of motion. 

As a whole, Harmony and Dissonance succeeds in characterizing Orphism. Through its works and descriptive wall text, it paints a comprehensive picture of a largely ignored movement, narrating its origins and its influences on the artists that would follow. This exhibition’s attempt at proving that Orphism’s relative obscurity is an oversight is less successful however. This is largely due to the fundamental artistic limitations of many Orphist pieces. As some of the first abstract paintings of their time, Orphist works were celebrated purely by virtue of their abstraction. There were no existing abstract works to judge them against, so artistic achievement was not the metric. Instead, experimentation and play were sought after, creating the dynamic but ultimately substanceless works that fill up so much of this exhibition. In doing so, however, the Orphists created the body of work that future abstract artists would build on as they created their own, more famous movements. Through its use of the Guggenhiem’s unique space, “Harmony and Dissonance” highlights this aspect of Orphism, placing it between the more cubist works that open the show and the purely abstract pieces that end it. The long curved ramp that connects these two extremes gives a unique insight into the transition towards pure abstraction that rocked the art world and gave birth to some of the 20th century’s most beloved masterpieces.