Robert Delaunay was very involved in the artistic movements of the beginning of the 20th century. After going through neoimpressionism and divisionism, he created simultanism, with his wife, Sonia Delaunay, a technique which aimed to create pictorial harmony through the simultaneous arrangement of colors. Like his friends Guillaume Apollinaire and Blaise Cendrars, Delaunay was fascinated by modernity, whether by the exploits of aviators, like he shows in his Homage to Blériot, or in here by the sport of rugby, then in full expansion and already very popular in France and the British Isles. Delaunay took inspiration of a photograph that he saw in a magazine of a rugby game for the painting series of which this was the second made.[2]
The painting depicts a game where a rugby team from Cardiff, in Wales, is participating, facing an unnamed adversary, possibly a French team. Six rugby players are shown in the lower part of the work, in sporting attires and in action, with their brightly colored jerseys made of crude lines. Three players have the same white and blue stripped jerseys, while the other three sportsmen belong to the opposite team. One of them is seen jumping while catching the ball. On the upper level of the painting there is an advertising poster with the slogan “Astra” and behind it some of the great inventions and creations of the time: a biplane, a rollercoaster and the Eiffel Tower. The name Delaunay can be seen at the bottom of the tower in a sort of advertisement, with the names of the cities of New York and Paris below.[3][4]
