Orphism

Related Category: European Art, 1600 to the Present

a short-lived movement in art founded in 1912 by Robert Delaunay, Frank Kupka, the Duchamp brothers, and Roger de la Fresnaye. Apollinaire coined the term orphism to describe the lyrical, shimmering chromatic effects that these painters sought to introduce into the drier aesthetic of cubism. Moving toward pure abstraction, the orphists saw painting as sensation. For a time their number included Léger, Picabia, Chagall, and Gliezes. The movement influenced the German Blaue Reiter group and the American synchromists Stanton Macdonald-Wright and Morgan Russell.