Painting

Fernand Leger 1881 - 1955

Summary

A composition of various abstract geometric shapes with the appearance of machine parts, including an octagon in the upper left-hand corner. On the right there is a suggestion of a face cut sharply in profile, looking into the picture. The colours are confined to black, white, yellow and maroon. One of a series of studies on the theme of the profile which culminated in a large mirror-reversed painting 'Composition avec profil' in 1926 which was owned by the architect, Le Corbusier, and is now in the Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris. Machine-made objects of the modern industrial world such as the door handle and finger plate are flattened and simplified to become abstract forms. They are combined with the profile and the stencilled figures (commonly used in Cubist paintings). The profile head also refers to a cinematic image from Leger's own avant-garde film of 1925, 'Ballet Mecanique'. The use of strong contrasts of line, colours and rhythms were employed by Leger to powerful and dynamic effect in this work.

Display Label

Gallery text panel Tradition and Experiment Early Twentieth-Century Art 1900 - 1939. In Britain, the beginning of the 20th century coincided with the end of the Victorian age. Artists and designers experimented, challenging traditional ways of seeing and making; now trying to create a new art for a modern era. In painting, it was often traditional subject matter such as portraits, landscapes and interiors that would be tackled in new ways. The bustle and the brutality of urban life was an inspiration or something to escape from. Boundaries became increasingly blurred between design and decoration, painting and making and individual expression replaced academic authority. Art was made to be affordable and at a scale that would fit into ordinary homes. Some called the celebration of the modern into question after the horrors of the First World War. Traditional imagery was simplified or became childlike and slowly broke down into fragmented visions. Dream and chance tapped into subconscious anxieties and in 1939, world war intervened once again.