Abstract This paper examines the role of color in the art of Sonia Delaunay as a conceptual and theoretical study, with particular attention to how color can be interpreted as an autonomous, generative principle within the context of modern and contemporary visual culture. The research is based on the recognition that, in Delaunay’s oeuvre, color does not appear merely as a formal or decorative element, but rather as an organizing force capable of structuring the image, space, and visual rhythm according to its own internal logic. The study emphasizes that Sonia Delaunay’s color-theoretical thinking cannot be fully separated from the work of Robert Delaunay and from the context of Parisian Orphism, in which color acquired dynamic, temporal, and energetic dimensions. The research therefore approaches color theory not as an individual artistic problem, but as part of a jointly developed theoretical and artistic system. In the age of digital and algorithmic image generation — a condition rooted in the computational transformation of visual production since the late twentieth century — where color selection and the construction of visual structures are increasingly the result of automated systems, it becomes particularly timely to reassess artistic practices that treated color as an autonomous, generative principle. This perspective is further extended toward contemporary painterly practices in which color operates as a spatial and experiential event, emphasizing bodily perception, temporality, and material presence as integral components of visual generation. The study does not aim at empirical analysis, but rather outlines a historical and theoretical framework that connects the color-theoretical thinking of the Delaunay couple with the functioning of contemporary visual systems. The purpose of the text is to articulate why the oeuvre of Sonia Delaunay, interpreted together with that of Robert Delaunay, can be approached as a relevant point of reference for the interpretation of contemporary visual culture, particularly in relation to algorithmic image generation and abstract visual systems, and why it is warranted to lay the groundwork for a later, more comprehensive interdisciplinary research on this subject. The present version includes an explicit statement of citation, versioning, and infrastructural positioning, provided separately from the abstract, and makes explicit the ethical, authorship, and infrastructural conditions under which the research is presented. Research profiles and project documentation: ORCID Researcher Profile Open Science Framework project page
Nicholas Van-Orton (Thu,) studied this question.