Fernand Léger was a French painter who lived from 1881 to 1955. He initially studied as an architect and when he moved to Paris in 1900 he worked as a draftsman. He then studied at two art schools: Ecole des Arts Decoratifs and the Academie Julian, but not until age 25 did he begin painting more diligently. In 1909 he met fellow avante-garde painters Marc Chagall, Robert Delaunay, and sculptor Alexander Archipenko. It wouldn't be long before Léger would be considered a major painter in the cubist style.
He was a member of the Puteaux Group, an offshoot of cubism. They used elements of tubular, and cubistic forms with primary and neutral colors in their work. Leger's use of cylindrical shapes in his paintings began to be called tubism by some people; his own personal twist (literally) on cubism. His increasingly abstract style during this time was also influenced by Italian futurism; Russian painter Kazemir Malevich was a also a futurist, and is who I thought of Immediately upon first seeing Leger's work.
"Enormous enlargements of an object or a fragment give it a personality it never had before, and in this way, it can become a vehicle of entirely new lyric and plastic power." -Fernand Léger
Still Life with a Beer Mug, 1921, Fernand Léger
Leger lived in the United States during world war II and taught at Yale, returning to Paris in 1945 where he opened an art academy. He moved away from his earlier more completely abstract style and began a new theme of his work: to elevate the common man with his paintings. He emphasized the working class using acrobats, cyclists, and workmen, painted in clear, flat colors. This quote from him below, reflects a recurring theme here at Modern Art Quotes:
"The realistic value of a work is completely independent of its properties in terms of content. " -Fernand Léger
That theme is: that regardless of how perfectly a painting might look like an object from life, if that object or scene from life is not interesting, than neither is the painting. You think this truth would be self-evident but it isn't to a lot of realist painters, who continue to paint dull lifeless repetitive landscapes of bowls, and jars, vegetables, fruits, etc. You cannot say that about Leger's art though, which connects the Cubists, Futurism, the working class, and the modern age.
Related Links:
Three Women, 1921 Fernand Léger
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