Color as a Generative Principle in the Work of Sonia Delaunay

Abstract The present document is a theoretical and conceptual preparatory text based on the study Color as a Generative Principle in the Work of Sonia Delaunay, archived and finalized on Zenodo Version 7. Its purpose is not to provide empirical analysis or a comprehensive art historical account, but to offer a concise and accessible presentation of the theoretical horizon within which color can be understood as an autonomous and generative principle in the context of modern and contemporary visual culture. The text starts from the fundamental observation that in Sonia Delaunay's oeuvre, color does not function merely as a formal or decorative element, but operates as an organizing principle that generates pictorial structure, spatial perception, and visual rhythm according to its own internal logic. The document emphasizes that this mode of color thinking cannot be separated from the work of Robert Delaunay and the context of Parisian Orphism, in which color acquired dynamic, temporal, and energetic dimensions. In the context of contemporary digital and algorithmic image production, where color increasingly appears as the result of automated systems, data driven decisions, and optimization logics, it becomes particularly timely to reexamine artistic and theoretical positions that treated color as an autonomous, experiential, and generative principle. The document extends this perspective to contemporary painting practices in which color functions as a spatial and sensory event rather than as a discrete, formalizable parameter. The text does not aim to formulate definitive conclusions, but instead delineates a stable theoretical framework that prepares the ground for future, more detailed, and potentially interdisciplinary research. This is Version 2 of the preprint. Version 1 was previously published on Knowledge Commons and is available at: https://doi.org/10.17613/wrn59-y6328