Still Life with a Parrot
Robert Delaunay, 1907
Still Life with a Parrot is an oil painting from 1907 in which Robert Delaunay, still a very young artist, tested the effects of colour. His approach draws on Michel-Eugène Chevreul's theories on how colours relate to one another and how they are perceived when placed side by side. For that reason, the interest of the picture lies less in its subject than in how the artist arranges areas of colour and seeks contrasts and vibrations between them. It is one of his earliest experimental works, a step toward the colour-driven painting he would develop in later years. The canvas belonged to the dealer Louis Carré and was acquired after his death by the Société Schongauer, which has run the museum since its foundation. A first version of the same motif, with a more fragmented, almost mosaic-like design, is held by the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid. Comparing the two allows one to follow the painter's development during those years.
- Painter
- Robert Delaunay
- Date
- 1907
- Medium
- oil paint, canvas, panel
- Dimensions
- 86 × 70 cm
- Museum
- Unterlinden Museum, Colmar
- Genre
- still life
- Depicts
- Psittacidae
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