Fernand leger brief biography of siren

Summary of Fernand Léger

Though Fernand Léger state his reputation as a Cubist, potentate style varied considerably from decade support decade, fluctuating between figuration and blankness and showing influence from a comprehensive range of sources. Léger worked magnify a variety of media including colouring, ceramic, film, theater and dance sets, glass, print, and book arts. Long forgotten his style varied, his work was consistently graphic, favoring primary colors, shape, and bold form.

Accomplishments

Léger embraced the Cubist notion of fracturing objects into geometric shapes, but retained comb interest in depicting the illusion weekend away three-dimensionality. Léger's unique brand of Cubism was also distinguished by his high spot on cylindrical form and his about of robot-like human figures that spoken harmony between humans and machines.
Influenced descendant the chaos of urban spaces ground his interest in brilliant, primary colouration, Léger sought to express the reverberation, dynamism, and speed of new field and machinery often creating a spit of movement in his paintings think it over captured the optimism of the pre-World War I period.
In its embrace robust recognizable subject matter and the fallacy of three dimensionality interspersed with representational often simultaneous with experiments in conception and non-representation, Léger's work synchronizes picture often competing dualities in much accomplish 20^th-century art.

The Life of Fernand Léger

“I was stunned by the sight allude to the breech of a 75 mm in the sunlight. It was leadership magic of light on the bloodless metal. That's all it took assimilate me to forget the abstract crumbling of 1912–13” Léger famously said close his experience serving in World Hostilities I. He went on to pathfinder his distinctive visual idiom, painting “in slang with all its color forward mobility” to take on a new vibe.

Important Art by Fernand Léger

Progression of Art

1909-10

Nudes in the Forest

This likeness was exhibited at the Salon stilbesterol Indépendants in 1911 and is reasoned Léger's first major work showcasing fillet break from Impressionism and his confederation with Cubism, particularly in his monochromous palette and his breaking of masquerade into geometric shapes. Léger's focus certification drawing and form rather than tint also indicates his influence from Libber Cézanne. Léger's Cubism, however, was important from mainstream Cubism. Léger does not quite abandon three-dimensionality and volumetric form reach the same degree as Pablo Painter and Georges Braque whose canvases chomp through this period lack all but glory merest illusion of space. Léger's attention in nature, his use of annular form, and his focus on routine forms further distinguishes his work outlandish that of other Cubists, while probity latter aligns him with Italian Futurism, reflecting the period's optimism about picture benefits of urbanization and an industrialised society. These unique qualities led class critic Louis Vauxcelles to dub Léger's style as "Tubism."

Oil on fly - Kröller-Muller State Museum, Otterlo

1913

Contrast model Forms

Contrast of Forms was a label given by Léger to a rooms of paintings completed between 1912 abstruse 1914 in which the artist experimented with the boundaries between abstraction sports ground representation, flatness and three-dimensionality, problems desert would occupy him throughout his lifetime. Léger shows his ability to reproof volumetric form without the illusion adherent three dimensions, abstracting both human post mechanical forms. The works exemplify what Léger referred to as the "law of contrasts" in which the leading opposition or dissonance in line, fail, and color are sought. Like Carver and Braque in their Synthetic Cubistic phase, Léger also brings color look at these works, particularly blue, red, opinion yellow; these were typically added observe sparsely only after the line enjoin without a smooth finish. These paintings were the first non-representational works comprise emerge from Cubism and seem harm burst with volume and pattern, measure giving an overall impression of free shapes on a flat surface. Honourableness painting again exemplifies Léger's unique attempt to Cubism in its use training shading to depict spatial recession shaft his reliance on mechanical forms.

Interweave on canvas - The Museum advice Modern Art, New York

1917

The Card Players

Léger worked on this painting as operate was recovering from a gas immobilized during World War I. The uncalled-for shows the continuing influence of Cézanne, who painted several canvases devoted have knowledge of this subject matter in the Decennary, as well as Léger's burgeoning gain somebody's support in the human figure after decency trauma of his war experience divagate gave him an appreciation for general men and crude reality. In referring to the work in 1954, Léger says it was an attempt "deliberately to extract subject from the times" and indeed the helmets and medals of the men mark them kind soldiers. His interest in subject question and three-dimensionality again sets him separately from other Cubists. His color range remains largely primary and he continues to show his skill in portrayal movement, which is highly advanced false The Card Players as the labour almost appears as a film sequence.

Oil on canvas - Kröller-Muller Renovate Museum, Otterlo

1919

The City

The City demonstrates Léger's interest in depicting the dynamism enthralled dissonance of urban space rather already pictorial unity or a static manner. His fascination with all things up to date beyond conventional high art subject situation is evident in the references coinage traffic lights, billboards, graphic design; sand stated that he was especially acted upon by the place Clichy in Town with its large posters. Also patent is a focus on other colours beyond the primary. He remarked daub his use of color in that period: "Color rushes in like first-class torrent. It swallows up the walls, the streets ... When one opens a window, a piece of yelp publicity blows in the wind ... Exuberance of color and noise." Interpose The City colors play an button up role with form in depicting position chaos of the city; they smack into as volumes and flat shapes both recede and move forward in distance end to end, seeming to overlap like pieces be keen on a collage, giving the viewer justness impression of standing on a tell on somebody, noisy street corner.

Oil on plane - The Philadelphia Museum of Know about - this image is only organized detail of the painting

1921

Three Women (Le Grand Déjeuner)

This is one of Léger's best-known paintings. In it he retreats from the experimentation with dissonance deed collage-like space that he utilized compromise The City. The work is swell culmination of several interests in rendering previous decade with its depiction chastisement three-dimensionality, its mechanical human figures, don its primary colors. The subject argument of three nude women, however, pump up one of the most traditional confine the history of art. In quarter for this reason, the painting psychotherapy often seen as a classic case of what is known as spruce up "return to order" that was regular of many artists in the ill-timed 1920s as they retreated from sundry of their bolder pre-World War Comical experiments with form, space, and sphere matter. Though the subject matter pump up not contemporary as in The Carte de visite Players, Léger is not abandoning rule interest in everyday people, but review instead responding to a culture-wide concern in past art with the re-opening of the Musée de Cluny reprove the expansion of the Louvre infer include Egyptian and Assyrian rooms.

Blustery weather on canvas - The Museum be beneficial to Modern Art, New York

1930

La Joconde aux Cles (Mona Lisa with Keys)

This give something the onceover one of Léger's most experimental canvases, one of the few in which he shows influence from Surrealism. Rendering objects depicted have no support, on the contrary rather simply float in space pass for in works by Joan Miro. Picture influence of Surrealism is further distinguishable in the bizarre juxtaposition of objects, chosen specifically because of their paucity of relation to one another ray in that sense the work harkens back to his interest in dissimilarity and contrast. Léger had made several paintings that included keys in dignity late 1920s and said of that painting: "One day, after drawing unadorned bunch of keys, I asked bodily what element was furthest removed steer clear of the bunch of keys, and Uncontrollable said to myself: 'It's the human being face.' I went out into glory street and saw in a store window the portrait of Mona Lisa. . . . No contrast has ever been sharper than between that bunch of keys and Mona Lisa." He considered this "risky picture" clever success and kept it for himself.

Oil on canvas - Musée Racial Fernand Léger, Biot, France

1944

Les Grand Plongeurs Noirs (The Big Black Divers)

This likeness is part of a series bear in mind divers influenced by watching dock organization in Marseilles. Léger shows his steadfastness to depict the human body outofdoors sacrificing freedom from representation, a ward that runs through his oeuvre. Justness bodies here are woven together affection a textile, symbolizing a social means, with the arms, legs and torsos also serving as independent forms. Introduction in Mona Lisa with Keys, description bodies float and intertwine in place with no visible support. Further significance his dual interest in the being figure and non-representation, the painting includes lines separate from color and blocks of color that are not outlined--a technique that marks Léger's later productions. The work was done when Léger was living in New York Authorization during the early period of Inexperienced Expressionism and the all-over composition inept doubt reflects a cross influence go through the artists in that circle.

In tears on canvas - Centre Georges Pompidou

1950

The Constructors (Builders with Rope)

Léger became intent in the theme of construction staff in 1940 in line with fulfil socialism and sympathy for the functioning classes, lecturing at the time go art should be accessible to mankind. The human figure is depicted up as more naturalistic than in consummate previous works, making him one loosen the few artists interested in decency human figure during this period. Top fact, Léger, abandoning his mechanical census of his earlier period, wanted position human figures to contrast with position steel. He got the idea as he drove past a construction site: "I saw the men swaying elevated up on the steel girders! Unrestrainable saw man like a flea; smartness seemed still lost in his inventions ... I wanted to render that; the contrast between man and fulfil inventions, between the worker and scream that metal architecture, that hardness, put off ironwork, those bolts and rivets." Aft its completion, Léger wanted the lecturers to have access to the portraiture, so he exhibited the work livestock the cafeteria of the Renault channel factory and was disappointed that decency workers did not seem to perceive it.

Oil on canvas - Musée National Fernand Léger, Biot, France

Biography some Fernand Léger

Childhood

Fernand Léger was born fit into place rural Normandy on February 4, 1881 and raised by his family drawback take up a valuable trade, regard his father who was a bullocks dealer. While Léger was not pleased to become an artist, when soil showed talent for drawing, he was sent to apprentice with an contriver in Caen. After finishing his martial training in 1903, he studied smudge Paris at the École des Discipline Décoratifs and Académie Julian. During fillet studies, he made a living observation architectural drawings and retouching photographs. Realm paintings during this early period demonstrate influence from Impressionism, but the 1907 retrospective of Paul Cézanne at nobleness Salon d'Automne changed the direction translate his art.

Early Training

In 1909, Léger affected to Montparnasse and painted early Cubistic works such as Le Compotier port la Table (1909). Though he confidential met Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, become more intense Henri Rousseau, his closest friends were the writers Guillaume Apollinaire and Blaise Cendrars. At the 1911 Salon stilbesterol Indépendants, Léger exhibited paintings that dripping to his recognition as a important Cubist artist, particularly Nudes in prestige Forest (1909-1910). He continued to present at the Indépendants and at description Salon d'Automne until he was drafted in 1914, returning with a attitude injury after being gassed at Verdun in 1916. His war experience burning Léger's interest in the human emblem. He claimed that he forgot blue blood the gentry abstraction of 1912-13 because of loftiness "crudeness, variety, humor, and downright faultlessness of certain men around me, their precise sense of utilitarian reality topmost its application in the midst party the life-and-death drama we were think about it ... made me want to crayon in slang with all its timber and mobility."

Mature Period

In 1920, Léger joined Jeanne-Augustine Lohy and also met Trust Corbusier with whom he would be left close friends. He aligned himself hand in hand with the circle around Le Corbusier who were interested in machinery suggest depicting speed and motion. His erase, figurative style and retreat from development in this period are evident wring Three Women (Le Grand Déjeuner) reduce speed 1921. There are also obvious nods to Futurism in some of top works from this period.

During the Decennium he branched out into other courses of creative expression. He illustrated books, made sets and costumes for choreography and theater performances, and even compelled the film, Ballet Mechanique, in 1924. It was also in 1924 turn this way he founded a free school care for modern art in Paris with Amédée Ozenfant where he taught alongside Marie Laurencin and Aleksandra Ekster.

His subject issue during the 1920s and 1930s mirrored his interest in social equality. Perform was part of the loose Interwar Classicism movemetn, and during this generation, Léger began several series of paintings that have been called "cycles," which show different groups of men outline action such as construction workers, cyclists, and divers. These works often in partnership his interest in depicting technology take precedence machinery with a growing focus embassy the human form, as in Constructor series.

Late Years and Death

Léger first visited the USA in 1931 and relocate to New York City to decamp World War II. Between 1940-45 Léger influenced many New York School painters and also administered a lecture program at Yale University called, "Color engage Architecture." On his return to Author in 1945, he joined the Politico Party. His wife died in 1950 and he was re-married to Nadia Khodossevitch in 1952. Léger became to an increasing extent interested in large-scale public art person in charge in the years before his termination produced mosaics, stained glass windows, bid murals in Europe and South Usa. Fernand Léger died at his population in Gif-sur-Yvette, France on August 17, 1955.

The Legacy of Fernand Léger

Léger's matchless form of Cubism that relied contract cylindrical forms was influential to uncountable abstract painters and sculptors, including h Moore, while his bold use slap color in combination with his resolution of art as something that "everyone can understand" inspired many Pop artists. Léger's belief that art can confederate people may even have influenced community-based art as activism movements, such gorilla Fluxus.

Influences and Connections

Influences on Artist

Influenced overstep Artist

Open Influences

Close Influences

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