Always transforming, mutating, revolving, Fernand Léger's artistic search can be said to encompass such a wide spectrum as that which ranges from Impressionism to Pop Art. During his first steps as a painter, he adopted a technique which mixed Impressionism with Fauvism. Later on, he took a more Cubist approach, bending later this style into Tubism and its peculiar tubular, conical, and cubed forms. In the mid-1920s Léger adhered to the French formalist movement called Purism: a rational, mathematically based current which originated as an attempt to uproot Cubism from its impetuosity. This was subsequently revised in 1930s, when -influenced by Surrealism- his style evolved into a more curvilinear and unrestricted.
His period as a military engineer at the front lines of World War I is worth deepening. Regarded as a turning point, his experience in war led him to his "mechanical" period, in which figures and objects are characterized by tubular, machinelike forms. Fascinated by the superhuman powers and definite beauty of weaponry, he seeked to depict the grace of urban environment, portraying humans as geometric, mechanized figures integrated with their analogue space. The duality of his involvement in war can be explained in his own words: "I was stunned by the sight of the breech of a 75 millimeter in the sunlight. It was the magic of light on the white metal. That's all it took for me to forget the abstract art of 1912–1913. The crudeness, variety, humor, and downright perfection of certain men around me, their precise sense of utilitarian reality and its application in the midst of the life-and-death drama we were in ... made me want to paint in slang with all its color and mobility (...) Total revolution, as man and as painter.” This new concern about making art accessible to the working classes was accentuated later in 1945, when he joined the Communist Party. Aiming to engage popular classes in Fine Arts, he started depicting scenes of popular life and leisure activities of working-class people. However, these last paintings never reached the popularity he expected.
On objectifying the subject or subjectifying the object:
As for the relation between object and subject in a work of art, in 1945 he wrote: "the object in modern painting must become the main character and overthrow the subject. If, in turn, the human form becomes an object, it can considerably liberate possibilities for the modern artist." In his 1949 essay "How I Conceive the Human Figure", he writes: "abstract art came as a complete revelation, and then we were able to consider the human figure as a plastic value, not as a sentimental value. That is why the human figure has remained willfully inexpressive throughout the evolution of my work". This recklessly simplified treatment of modern subject matter, the inclusion of objects from the consumer society as subjects has caused him to be regarded as the progenitor of Pop Art.
Multiple mediums:
Among the many mediums through which Léger experimented during his life, one can cite murals, tapestry, pottery, book illustrations, mosaics, polychrome ceramic sculptures, stained-glass windows, set and costume designs for theatre and motion pictures, and even filmmaking. Related to this latter, in collaboration with Man Ray, Dudley Murphy and George Antheil, in 1924 he produced and directed his first film: Ballet Mécanique. This iconic and Futurism-influenced film was neither abstract nor narrative, depicting a series of seemingly unrelated images such as close-up shots of ordinary objects, the rythmic movement of routine human activities and machines, a woman's teeth and lips. Writing and directing the piece The Girl with the Prefabricated Heart, Léger also collaborated with surrealist artist and dada film-theorist Hans Richter in his 1947 experimental feature color film Dreams That Money Can Buy.
Art Gallery:
Film Gallery:
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