Section d'Or

Section d'Or. Group of French painters who worked in loose association between 1912 and 1914, when the First World War brought an end to their activity. The members included Delaunay, Duchamp, Duchamp-Villon, Gleizes, Gris, Léger, Metzinger, Picabia, and Villon. Their common stylistic feature was a debt to Cubism. The name of the group, which was also the title of a short-lived magazine it published, was suggested by Villon. It refers to a mathematical proportion known as the Golden Section in which a straight line or rectangle is divided into two parts in such a way that the ratio of the smaller to the greater part is the same as the greater to the whole (roughly 8:13). The proportion has been studied since antiquity and has been said to possess inherent aesthetic value because of an alleged correspondence with the laws of nature or the universe. The choice of this name reflected the interest of the artists involved in questions of proportion and pictorial discipline. They held one exhibition, the ‘Salon de la Section d'Or’ at the Galerie la Boétie, Paris, in October 1912; Apollinaire gave a lecture here at which he is said to have introduced the term Orphism to describe the work of several of the members of the group. Although Kupka's name is not included in the catalogue, there is some evidence that he showed work at the exhibition and he is generally included among the Orphists.