Robert Delaunay
French, 1885­1941
Champs de Mars: The Red Tower
Begun in 1911, revised sometime before 1923
Oil on canvas
162.6 x 130.8 cm
Joseph Winterbotham Collection, 1959.1
© 1995 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

The artist was four years old when the Eiffel Tower was built in Paris in 1889. The tower was a great engineering triumph and became a symbol for the city of Paris, as well as for the modern age. As a young artist, Delaunay celebrated the dynamism of modern life in a series of paintings of the tower. Here, the bright red tower appears to be in motion and seems to explode out of the dark buildings that frame it. Where do you see smaller, lower buildings? What do you think the patches of blue and white are at the top of the painting?