Fernand Leger and the Modern City : An Analysis of Spatial Structure in Painting

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Other Title
  • フェルナン・レジェの都市イメージ : 絵画における空間構築に関する一考察
  • フェルナン レジェ ノ トシ イメージ カイガ ニ オケル クウカン コウチク ニ カンスル イチ コウサツ

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The present paper proposes to analyze the theme of the Modern City in a series of loosely related works by French painter Fernand Leger (1881-1955) from 1919 to 1923. After returning from the Great War, Leger proved remarkably productive and tackled several different styles and themes at once, thus leading previous critics of his art to describe this stage in his career as a particularly eclectic one, especially when compared with the contemporary "call to order" within the avant-garde circles. Nonetheless, it is a common trend in these studies to somewhat overlook the overarching motif-based on the painter's deeply personal interpretation of modern urban life-which served to conceptually unify these works. It is our intention therefore to reassess Leger's conception of the City and reveal the significance of his works on this theme in a new light. He was very receptive to the dramatic changes around him and showed great interest in the emerging forms of modernist architecture. This choice of subject led him to move from his early "simultanist" evocation of life in the Modern City towards a socially-engaged and boldly pictorial exploration of new possibilities within a revolutionary concept of urban space.

Journal

  • Aesthetics

    Aesthetics 62 (1), 73-84, 2011

    The Japanese Society for Aesthetics

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