Léger

Its interesting to look at the stats for the various posts to this blog over the last few months. What started as a way of sharing information and ideas with one or maybe two others has now been viewed by over 3000. Behind the scenes of blogspot, there is a stats page which gives the breakdown on most viewed posts. Currently the top three are the Map of Neverland from Peter Pan, Fernand Leger's Card Players painting and a poem by a mate - Ross Clark: 'Just After Rain'. This post is pandering to populism with another entry on a favourite artist of mine - French painter Fernand Léger (1881 -1955).

Painter, sculptor and film-maker, Léger took elements of Cubism and transformed them into his own particular style in the early 1920s. He had been wounded in WWI and his experiences in the trenches obviously had an effect on his art with mechanics and artillery featuring in his production of images.

L’Inhumaine (1924, dir. Marcel L’Herbier)

He also loved film and for a while toyed with the idea of giving up painting to become a film maker. He briefly worked as an art director/set designer producing the modernist set design for the French film L’Inhumaine (1924, dir. Marcel L’Herbier). The same year, in collaboration with Dudley Murphy, George Antheil, and Man Ray, Léger produced and directed the iconic and Futurist  film, Ballet Mécanique. Neither abstract nor narrative, it is a series of images of a woman's lips and teeth, close-up shots of ordinary objects, and repeated images of human activities and machines in rhythmic movement.

In the 1940s,  his work became less abstract, and he produced  figure compositions depicting scenes of popular life featuring acrobats, builders, divers, and country outings. His varied projects included book illustrations, murals, stained-glass windows, mosaics, ceramic sculptures, and set and costume designs.  Léger wrote in 1945 that "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." He was the forerunner artist to the pop art movement of the 60's and 70s and his legacy continues today.

Burn brightly, Pete