Fernand Léger (1881-1955): Primarily a Neo-Cubist
The Bargeman, 1918
Three Women, 1921
The Four Cyclists, 1943-48
The Great Parade, 1954
Trapeze Artists, 1954
Two Women Holding Flowers, 1954
What does that represent? There was never any question in plastic art, in poetry, in music, of representing anything. It is a matter of making something beautiful, moving, or dramatic - this is by no means the same thing.
Every canvas, even if non-representational, that depends upon harmonious relationships of the three forces - color, volume and line - is a work of art.
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.
Even a part of an object has value. A whole new realism resides in the way one envisages an object or one of its parts.
The realistic value of a work is completely independent of its properties in terms of content.
