Fernand Leger Quotes

A collection of quotes by Fernand Leger.

Fernand LÃ©ger (1881-1955) was a prominent French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker, considered one of the major figures of the early 20th-century modern art movements. Born on February 4, 1881, in Argentan, France, LÃ©ger showed an early passion for art, apprenticing as an architectural draftsman before moving to Paris to study painting in 1900.

LÃ©ger's early works were influenced by Impressionism and Fauvism, but he later developed his distinctive style that combined Cubism and Futurism. With bold colors, simplified geometric shapes, and a focus on industrial subjects, he depicted the rhythm and energy of modern urban life. His paintings often featured mechanical objects, such as machines, factories, and cityscapes, capturing the spirit of the machine age.

Beyond his prolific painting career, LÃ©ger also explored other art forms. In the 1920s, he ventured into filmmaking, creating abstract films that showcased his artistic vision. He later embraced sculpture, producing large-scale works that incorporated his signature style.

Throughout his career, LÃ©ger's work underwent various shifts but continued to reflect his fascination with modern machinery, technology, and the working class. His innovative approach to art had a significant influence on future generations of artists, and he became known as a key figure bridging the gap between traditional art and the emerging abstract movements of the time.

Fernand LÃ©ger passed away on August 17, 1955, in Gif-sur-Yvette, France, leaving behind a rich legacy of artwork that continues to inspire and captivate audiences worldwide.

This truth must be recognized as a dogma and assume the vali

This truth must be recognized as a dogma and assume the validity of an axiom in the general understanding of painting.

What does that represent? There was never any question in pl

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.

On the contrary, art consists of inventing and not copying.

On the contrary, art consists of inventing and not copying. The Italian Renaissance is a period of artistic decadence. Those men, devoid of their predecessors' inventiveness, thought they were stronger as imitators-that is false. Art must be free in its inventiveness, it must raise us above too much reality. This is its goal, whether it is poetry or painting. The plastic life, the picture, is made up of harmonious relationships among volumes, lines, and colors. These are the three forces that must govern works of art. If, in organizing these three essential elements harmoniously, one finds that objects, elements of reality, can enter into the composition, it may be better and may give the work more richness. But they must be subordinated to the three essential elements mentioned above. Modern work thus takes a point of view directly opposed to academic work. Academic work puts the subject first and relegates pictorial values to a secondary level, if there is room.For us others, it is the opposite. Every canvas, even if nonrepresentational, that depends on harmonious relationships of the three forces-color, volume, and line-is a work of art. I repeat, if the object can be included without shattering the governing structure, the canvas is enriched.Sometimes these relationships are merely decorative when they are abstract. But if objects figure in the composition-free objects with a genuine plastic value-pictures result that have as much variety and profundity as any with an imitative subject.

The feat of superbly imitating a muscle, as Michelangelo did

The feat of superbly imitating a muscle, as Michelangelo did, or a face, as Raphael did, created neither progress nor a hierarchy in art. Because these artists of the sixteenth century imitated human forms, they were not superior to the artists of the high periods of Egyptian, Chaldean, Indochinese, Roman, and Gothic art who interpreted and stylized form but did not imitate it.