Léger’s return to France from the United States in 1945 renewed his zest for socio-political engagement in his work. In 1950 he declared that the oft-criticized period which celebrated art for art’s sake and art without real object was over, that a new period was beginning, one in which artists would return to meaningful subjects which ordinary people could understand. In contrast to the rarefied and elitist aesthetic of post-war abstraction, he intended to appeal to the public with a more accessible and figurative style. He maintained however, that a return to the subject did not necessarily preclude the use of abstract forms - and it is precisely this oscillation between the figurative and the abstract that lends these late visual collages their energy. In the present striking example, the unambiguous stencil-like forms of the birds capture the viewer’s attention and the composition at first feels legible, but the eye is simultaneously drawn by the unfamiliar blend of organic and mechanical elements in the background, which need to be deciphered. This layering of graphic and abstract forms result in an intriguing visual synergy.
Leger in the 1950s
The present work is from a series that the artist created in the early 1950s featuring birds in flight. Two doves, symbols of peace, are picked out in yellow and blue against the two-tone background and thick black lines. Schematic, modern, joyful: the series is one of his most uplifting and characteristic of the remarkable positivity of Léger's mature period.
The vivid primary hues and the orange background of this large-scale oil create an impression of dynamism and vitality that belies the two-dimensionality of the picture plane. The simplicity and apparent "flatness" with which the artist composed his late works is evocative not only of the still lifes of his contemporary, Henri Matisse, but also of the techniques associated today with the generation of Pop artists and street artists who followed Léger in their elevation of everyday objects. Traces of his legacy can be found in the works of such artists as Roy Lichtenstein, Keith Haring, David Hockney and Jonas Wood.