Painted in 1925, Nature morte (le verre) is an outstanding and exquisitely elegant example of the retour à l’ordre, one of the most prominent art movements to immediately follow the First World War. It showcases the confluence of numerous ground-breaking elements that inspired many of the leading artists of the 1920s. The reinterpretation of the still life as a modern-day subject matter, the novel depiction of space and form after the initial and revolutionary distortion of perspective by Cubism and the innovative use of color make this a beautiful rendition of modern life.
Fernand Léger’s reincorporation of figurative elements exemplifies the retour à l’ordre which rejected many aspects of the avant-garde, instead taking inspiration from more traditional and classical subject matters and their execution. Artists returned to what felt like a more harmonious and reassuring approach to art. Léger himself progressed from his “mechanical period” of the 1910s in which industrial and machine-like objects were the primary focus of his work and began to move to subject matter such as the still life. He defied the boundaries of this traditional genre by depicting a range of near-abstract forms and highly stylized fragments of everyday objects. The strong vertical lines of the glass in the present work echo a classical column and are counterposed with circular forms around its base. Léger deployed a similar architectural motif the previous year in his iconic work Le Siphon, now at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery (see fig. 1). This interplay and contrast of shapes throughout the composition highlights the geometric foundation of the composition, considered a metaphor for modern life by Léger: “Modern Man lives more and more in a preponderantly geometric order. All mechanical and industrial human creation is subject to geometric forces” (quoted in Edward F. Fry, Fernand Léger: The Functions of Painting, New York, 1973, p. 52). This complex interplay between purist, classical and plastic qualities characterizes Léger’s paintings from the mid-1920’s and is beautifully exemplified in the present composition.
The contrast in form and shape is further underlined by the artist’s use of color. The large blocks of solid pigment reflect Léger’s belief in the key role of pure color and are implemented to provide further depth to the picture plane without relying on classical techniques of perspective. While colors and shapes are bold in their opposition, their composition are judiciously considered and balanced to vitalize the picture plane. As Léger described: “I organize the opposition of contrasting values, lines and curves. I oppose curves to straight lines, flat surfaces to molded forms, pure local colors to nuances of grey” (ibid, pp. 24-25). His strong use of color was also a break from the monochromaticity of Cubism with which he heavily experimented before the war. Léger took the fragmentation of the canvas a step further by further isolating individual forms and thus suspending them in space without ever breaking fully into abstraction (see fig. 2).
Léger worked closely with Amédée Ozenfant and Charles Édouard Jeanneret, later to be known as Le Corbusier, and had debated their theory of Purism. Ozenfant and Le Corbusier called for a rejection of Cubism and its excessive fragmentation, advocating a more rational, reduced and classical form of expression, such as that found in Le Corbusier's 1922 canvas Nature morte verticale (see fig. 3). Similarly, in the present still life, Léger’s subject is almost simplified to the extreme with the glass as the focal point and surrounded by strong block colors. Furthermore, the stenciled letters against the beige background reconnects Léger’s aesthetic to Dada art which similarly ventured to make sense of the horrors of the First World War in its own and very particular way. Through his unique vision, Léger is able to synthesize an elegant, intellectual and animated world in response to the intricacies and changing pace of modern life. Just a year prior to painting Nature morte (le verre) Léger made his first dedicated foray into filmaking with the groundbreaking Le Ballet Mecanique, a complete expression of the rapid pace, chaos and relative commercialism of modern city life. click below to view Le Ballet Mecanique.
