Kaleidoscopic hues and deceptively abstract Orphic imagery currently envelope the spiraling white walls of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, presenting visuals so striking that the museum interior seems to blur into a singular piece of hypnotizing artwork. Opened initially on November 8th, 2024, and on view through March 9th, 2025, the Guggenheim’s newest exhibit ‘Harmony and Dissonance: Orphism in Paris, 1910–1930‘ accomplishes the remarkable, capturing the nebulous essence of Orphism, an art movement deemed by many critics as one of pure abstraction. Displaying over ninety works from an extensive list of twenty-six artists (the pioneers of the movement are just as undefined as the movement itself), such as Robert and Sonia Delaunay and František Kupka, the exhibit immerses visitors in the perhaps anarchic but undeniably beautiful world of works of art from the Orphism movement.
Orphism has long struggled to secure a solidified place within an art history consisting of art movements that possess a distinctive art style and roots. Indeed, it is not entirely egregious to simply dismiss Orphism, with its bold color, rhythmic usage of geometric forms, and abstract energy, as nothing but a mirror of Cubism. As a random exhibit visitor — whom I couldn’t help but overhear thanks to the Guggenhiem’s echo — remarked, “It’s like Cubism, but French!”
However, the curators of ‘Harmony and Dissonance: Orphism in Paris, 1910–1930’ contest that there are discrepancies in the chronically oversimplified understanding of Orphism, making it apparent that the movement, despite evolving from Cubism, is an independent art form deserving of its own interpretation and reverence.
The curators of this Guggenheim exhibition are undoubtedly ambitious for assembling an Orphism collection — defining Orphism is as elusive as analyzing its ambiguous compositions. Upon an initial glance around the museum, you can’t help but ponder how certain pieces managed to end up in the same exhibit. For instance, Frantisek Kupka’s Localization of Graphic Motifs II, 1912-13, characterized by dark jewel tones, lies right next to Sonia Delaunay’s Electric Prisms (1914), a tapestry of bright hues with the utmost vibrancy.
Yet, as you continue to ascend the museum’s iconic rotunda, you begin to feel the rhythmic pulse that unifies all Orphism pieces. “It’s interesting to see how people took the movement in different directions. The elements are similar, but the execution is so different,” said Lance, a visitor with whom I spoke.
Coined by the poet and critic Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918), Orphism embraces pure color and movement over rigid geometric structures. Orphists sought to evoke the fluidity and harmony of music in a form that could be perceived by the human eye, creating compositions vibrating with motion. Nan, another exhibit visitor I had the opportunity to speak with, describes how she distinguishes works in the Orphism movement: “You can tell they’re Orphist pieces by the fact that there is so much motion in them. You can get the depiction of what the artists are seeing in movement and light as opposed to defined figures,” Nan said.
Entering the exhibit, visitors are greeted with Russian-French artist Sonia Delaunay’s infamous Electric Prisms (1914). At first, you cannot quite discern what you’re looking at. Still, it’s nearly impossible to avert your gaze from Delaunay’s magnetic piece as you yearn to find the hidden meaning within the waves of contrasting primary and secondary colors and organic and geometric shapes dancing across the canvas. Soon, figures begin to emerge from fragmented shapes; the compositions that first appeared chaotic soon resolve into dynamic yet discernible structures.
In the midst of its obscure appearance and title, one may miss that Electric Prisms is an eccentric landscape piece of Boulevard Saint-Michel in the Latin Quarter of Paris. Delaunay, invigorated by the newly installed electric lamplights along the boulevard, curated Electric Prisms to represent the fascinating ways in which the novel innovation of artificial light (at the time) illuminated Paris’s vibrant nighttime landscape. She was enthralled by the way in which these lights refracted and scattered across surfaces; Electric Prisms is her translation of this spirited energy onto canvas.
New innovations inevitably fueled the avant-garde Orphist vision, presenting artists with a phenomenon rare in art — uncharted, fresh artistic inspiration. It’s no coincidence that Orphism arose in early 20th century Paris, a period distinguished by rapid technological and cultural advancement. Orphists thrived off societal progression, striving to create art that encapsulated the unfamiliar but exhilarating sensations of modern life. “When artists find themselves in a particular time and place, they’re influenced by everything that’s current and recent. There were various modern movements going on, and Orphists thought, ‘hey, let’s take them in this new direction.’ It’s continuous innovation,” said Aaron, another visitor with whom I spoke. “They were responding to the whole resurgence of freedom to innovate. They drew on jazz and prior explorations of art.”
The blur of concurrently occurring major events of the 1900s molded the core philosophy of Orphists: simultanism. Indeed, the Delauneys, the family (arbitrarily) deemed the founders of the Orphist movement initially declared their art style as simultanisme.
Everything was happening everywhere all at once and Orphists seized the opportunity to capture it on the canvas. Orphism depicts the beautiful but frenzied spirit of a society undergoing so many developments at once that a cohesive societal vision ceases to exist. After all, who cares for cohesion when you could have ravishing chaos? Orphists saw true artistic mastery not in the flawless preservation of the imagery of a single moment, but rather in the encapsulation of the collective essence of countless different ones.
Robert Delaunay’s The Cardiff Team (1913) exemplifies the Orphist philosophy, employing overlapping imagery to evoke the liveliness and electrifying energy of 1900s Paris. Icons of Paris’s cityscape peak through the flurried haze of color, with the faint silhouette of The Great Wheel and Eiffel Tower lingering in the scene’s background. An object faintly reminiscent of a plane hangs over the wheel, alluding to the revolutionary first flight ever across the English Channel in 1909. Colorful shadows of rugby players appear to flicker in and out of the admirer’s gaze; only from a certain angle do the forms look human. This instability challenges the eye, forcing it to reconstruct the image in real-time, much like memory itself — fluid, selective, and ever-changing.
On a lone canvas, Delaunay traps the intoxicating pulse of 20th-century Paris. He captures not merely what is seen but what is felt: the energy of a city, the motion of time, and the fleeting nature of experience.
Unfortunately, Orphism as a movement was just as fleeting as stability in Europe. As World War One shattered the bursting optimism of the early 20th century, the movement’s utopian vision lost momentum. Many of its key figures, such as Picabia, moved toward Dadaism, while others, such as Kupka, pursued increasingly rigid geometric abstraction, relinquishing the dynamism and vibrance of their orphic roots.
It’s tempting to dismiss Orphist art as a meaningless abstraction — chaotic, fragmented, and visually frenzied. While this perception is not fully void of truth, The Guggenheim’s ‘Harmony and Dissonance: Orphism in Paris, 1910–1930’ unveils the movement as one deeply attuned to the rhythms and energy of the rapidly modernizing world during the 20th century. More than an offshoot of Cubism, Orphism presents distinct compositions – not just reconstructions of past images, but an attempt to capture the ephemeral sensations and dynamism of its time. Take the 4 Train or the M86 to the Guggenheim and immerse yourself in the zealous yet fugacious movement that strove to translate motion itself into color and form.
More than an offshoot of Cubism, Orphism presents distinct compositions – not just reconstructions of past images, but an attempt to capture the ephemeral sensations and dynamism of its time.