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Lot Essay
Paysage Polychrome was painted in 1937 and perfectly condenses the sense of playful lyricism and dynamism that characterized Fernand Léger’s works during this period. While eschewing the intense scrutiny of some of Léger’s highly-observed and even exaggerated studies of the period, Paysage Polychrome nonetheless insists on the landscape and on the tree in particular as a focus for our attention, devoid of narrative, but in their own right. At the same time, in its verve, capriciousness and intense palette, the compositional elements may reveal Léger’s response to the works of his friend Alexander Calder, whom he had met in 1930.
Throughout the 1930s, Léger endeavored to create a new artistic language appropriate to the expression of the reality of modern day life. This pictorial language would not aim for mimetic reproduction but instead for an abstraction inspired by nature and the imagination. Léger compared this creativity with the inventiveness and mutability of spoken language. In a 1937 essay entitled "The New Realism Goes On," Léger wrote, "All down the ages, the people have gone on inventing their language, which is their own form of realism. This language is unbelievably rich in substance. Slang is the finest and most vital poetry that there is... This verbal form represents an alliance of realism and imaginative transposition; it is a new realism, perpetually in movement" (quoted in E.F. Fry, ed., "Art and the People," Functions of Painting, New York, 1973, p. 118).
The vibrancy and exuberance of the palette is a striking feature of the present work, and it is worth noting that in the same essay, Léger stated that, "Color brings joy... It is an elemental force, as indispensable to life as water and fire. It may exalt the impulse to action to an infinite degree; it may well stand up to the laud-speaker, being of the same stature as the latter. There are no limits to its use, from the slightest shading to a dazzling burst" (ibid., p. 117).
Throughout the 1930s, Léger endeavored to create a new artistic language appropriate to the expression of the reality of modern day life. This pictorial language would not aim for mimetic reproduction but instead for an abstraction inspired by nature and the imagination. Léger compared this creativity with the inventiveness and mutability of spoken language. In a 1937 essay entitled "The New Realism Goes On," Léger wrote, "All down the ages, the people have gone on inventing their language, which is their own form of realism. This language is unbelievably rich in substance. Slang is the finest and most vital poetry that there is... This verbal form represents an alliance of realism and imaginative transposition; it is a new realism, perpetually in movement" (quoted in E.F. Fry, ed., "Art and the People," Functions of Painting, New York, 1973, p. 118).
The vibrancy and exuberance of the palette is a striking feature of the present work, and it is worth noting that in the same essay, Léger stated that, "Color brings joy... It is an elemental force, as indispensable to life as water and fire. It may exalt the impulse to action to an infinite degree; it may well stand up to the laud-speaker, being of the same stature as the latter. There are no limits to its use, from the slightest shading to a dazzling burst" (ibid., p. 117).