Hommage to Blériot

Robert Delaunay, 1914

Homage to Blériot is Robert Delaunay's 1914 tempera on canvas, painted while he was working on his series of Disks. The canvas honours Louis Blériot, the French aviation pioneer, though it presents him mainly as an aircraft builder rather than a pilot. An inscription along the lower edge dedicates the work to the great constructor. Across a field of luminous, overlapping discs, Delaunay placed recognisable emblems of modern progress: a propeller on the left and, on the right, a biplane flying above the Eiffel Tower. The colour structure draws on Michel Eugène Chevreul's theory of simultaneous contrast, while its fragmented forms echo Neo-Impressionism, Cubism and Futurism. Delaunay tied the picture to sunlight, depth and movement. A second version of the composition is held in Grenoble, and a preparatory study for the final canvas was later sold at Christie's.

Painter: Robert Delaunay
Date: 1914
Medium: tempera, canvas
Dimensions: 250 × 251 cm
Museum: Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel
Movement: simultanism, Orphism
Depicts: propeller, biplane, Eiffel Tower

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More works by Robert Delaunay

**Rhythms**1934Musée National d'Art Moderne

**Champs de Mars, the Red Tower**1911Art Institute of Chicago

**Still Life with a Parrot**1907Unterlinden Museum

**Portuguese Woman**1916Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum

**Portrait of Tristan Tzara**1923Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía

**Windows Open**1912Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

**Rythme n°1, décoration pour le Salon des Tuileries**1938Musée d'art moderne de Paris

**Rhythm, Joie de vivre**1930Musée National d'Art Moderne

**The Eiffel Tower**1926Musée National d'Art Moderne

**Carousel of Pigs**1922Musée National d'Art Moderne