I like how Robert Delaunays 1924 painting *Eiffel Tower* (oil on canvas) captures something of the towers original whimsy. While its metal frame is currently exposed, the Eiffel Tower spent the first decades of its life decorated in a variety of colors, including bright reds and yellows. It seems to me that these colors spoke to a sense of optimism and possibility and civic charm that is sorely lacking from 21st-century life. Imagine how a fresh coat of paint would liven up one of worlds great examples of industrial architecture, and perhaps even the millions of people who visit it each year. Heres the blurb from the Dallas Museum of Arts informational placard: Robert Delaunays *Eiffel Tower* is an emphatic celebration of modernity. The soaring wrought iron girders of the Eiffel Tower, erected for the Paris International Exposition in 1889, had already become an icon of the modern age. The whirling propeller forms at the upper left are also symbols of technological advancement, an allusion to the heroic cross-Channel flight of Lewis Blériot in 1911. With the jumble of multiple perspectives -- birds eye view from the tower, head-on cruciform pattern of the propellers -- the artist attempts to capture the dizzying effects of height and speed. This painting joins others with a similarly optimistic attitude toward the progress of the modern industrial world.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 14:53:45 +0000
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