
by Robert Delaunay, 1911
Robert Delaunay made this at least 60 paintings of the Eiffel Tower throughout his career. The structure became his enduring obsession, what he called "the barometer of my art." He first painted the tower between 1909 and 1912, then returned to the subject with new approaches in the 1920s.
His early tower paintings fracture the structure into faceted, Cubist forms that seem to dissolve into the surrounding city. But Delaunay pushed beyond Cubism's brown and black palette toward vibrant color, co-founding a movement called Orphism with his wife Sonia. As she wrote, "The Tower was his liberated muse, his Eve of the future."
The Eiffel Tower represented everything modern: erected in 1889, it was then the world's tallest building, looming over classical Paris. For Delaunay and other modernists, it symbolized the dawn of the machine age. Later versions looked down from hot air balloons, breaking the tower into symphonic patchworks of color and light.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel

Arnold Böcklin
Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel

Robert Delaunay
Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel

Hans Holbein the Younger
Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel
Other masterpieces from the Cubism movement

Pablo Picasso, 1937
Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid

Pablo Picasso, 1905
Private Collection, Unknown

Juan Gris, 1913
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Pablo Picasso, 1955
Private Collection, Unknown

Pablo Picasso, 1932
Private Collection, Unknown

Pablo Picasso, 1905
Private Collection, Unknown

Juan Gris, 1912
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

Pablo Picasso, 1941
Private Collection, Unknown
Luxury wall art with the same mood and energy. Gallery-quality canvas, no museum crowds.
Browse Collection