Esquisse pour "La Ville" (Sketch for "The City")
Artist: Fernand Léger (French, 1881-1955)
Date: 1919
Dimensions:
Painting: 25 5/8 x 21 1/4 in. (65.1 x 54 cm)
Frame: 33 1/2 x 29 x 2 in. (85.1 x 73.7 x 5.1 cm)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Object number: 2000.9
Label Text:Before producing his large version of The City (La ville), now in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Fernand Léger worked out his composition with multiple smaller canvases. His related works in the series, each named a “study” or “fragment,” focused on different areas of the final composition. In this sketch, however, Léger fully realizes his composition, and the work reads as complete rather than preliminary.
Depictions of Paris became a primary subject for Léger when he returned to the city after serving in the French army during World War I (1914–1918). This image, with its Cubist fragmentation and glimpses of scaffolding, smoke stacks, and billboards, captures the height of the industrial age and Paris’s vibrant post-war development.
Léger described the accomplishments of The City, saying, “I composed a picture exclusively with pure, flat colors. Technically, that picture was a plastic [sculptural] revolution. One could achieve depth and dynamism without modeling or chiaroscuro [light and shadow]. The pure tones of the blues, reds, and yellows break away [from the subject] and the color had become free. It was a reality in its own right.”
Depictions of Paris became a primary subject for Léger when he returned to the city after serving in the French army during World War I (1914–1918). This image, with its Cubist fragmentation and glimpses of scaffolding, smoke stacks, and billboards, captures the height of the industrial age and Paris’s vibrant post-war development.
Léger described the accomplishments of The City, saying, “I composed a picture exclusively with pure, flat colors. Technically, that picture was a plastic [sculptural] revolution. One could achieve depth and dynamism without modeling or chiaroscuro [light and shadow]. The pure tones of the blues, reds, and yellows break away [from the subject] and the color had become free. It was a reality in its own right.”
Not on view
In Collection(s)