Birthday Fernand Leger

[eva777]

Fernand Leger was born on February 4, 1881 in the town of Argentan, in Normandy. His father, Henry Armand Leger, was engaged in breeding livestock. He died a few years after the birth of the future artist. His mother, nee Marie Adele Dyunon, lived on his farm in Lizore until his death in 1922.

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Fernand arzhantanskom studied in college and in church school in Tenshebre. Here, but thinking about their future, and realized that he wanted to become an architect.
In 1897-1899 years he learns from the architect in Cannes. Here he learns the basics of graphics. The next two years he lived in Paris, where he engaged in essentially the same as running a draftsman in an architect.
His architectural career interrupted by military service in Demining regiment at Versailles. But in 1903 he enrolled in the Higher School of Decorative Arts. It does not take in the High School of Fine Arts, but he visits on the Rights of auditor courses and Jérôme Ferrier, as well as the Academy Julian. Free time he spends in the Louvre. His special attention is drawn to the work of the Impressionists. Their influence is felt in his earlier works. He was shocked by a posthumous exhibition of Cezanne in the cabin "Independent".
In 1908, Léger settled in the so-touted "Houllier, a house with shops, where they found shelter future geniuses. Here he met with Archipenko, Laurens, Soutine, Chagall, Delaunay. There are often Max Jacob, Apollinaire, Renal and drugimie famous people. Some of them have become his friends.
In 1909, Leger is adjacent to the new direction, cubism. Further subjects of his works become more abstract, although at a late stage Leger departs from the abstract, at least in his easel works.
Significant place in the work of Leger, focusing on social and industrial topics. In addition to painting the artist also worked with ceramics, book illustrations, designs clothing and carpets, working in theater and film.
The owner of an art gallery Kanveyler supporting Picasso and Braque, Leger buys several paintings, which allows the artist to move to the street Ansenn Comedie. He met with Jacques Villon, and through him to the group "Golden Section" in the 1911-meters with Glez, Delaunay and others involved in the exhibition "Independent": in the hall, called the "hall Cubists," Paintings "Nudes in the Forest". Along with this group is exposed and in Brussels.
In 1913, Leger gave a lecture "The origins of painting and its expressive value" of the Academy Vasilyeva, the text of which is published in Paris, Berlin and Bergen. He participates in the exhibition "Independent", in "Armor Show" and in the first Salon d'Automne exhibition in Berlin, and finally, signs an agreement with Kanveylerom to sell him their work. With the money he takes a studio in the house on the street Notre-Dame-de-Champs, which retains the end of life.
In August 1914, the artist mobilize and send troops into combat engineers. In September 1916, at Verdun, where the Leger was engaged in transporting the wounded, he was gassed, but only to the end of 1917, sacked him from military service, and he begins to paint again.
In 1919, Leger marry Jeanne Loy begins to work on their major paintings, and exhibits his work in Paris Leonce Rosenberg's gallery in Antwerp. He strikes up friendship with Le Corbusier, wrote the paintings "The Mechanic" and "Big Lunch". Since that year over many years exposed in "Independent". He participates in the work on the film Abel Gance "Wheel", illustrates the book, carry out projects of scenery and costumes for productions, in general, is active and creative life.
War On Leger discovered a "new forms of machine aesthetics. "The war struck the emerged world - a world that is firm, clear and precise. No more of the landscape, still life, portrait. There is a view, there is a substantive picture of our Wednesday - this, of course, the subject of mechanical, fabricated, he is slowly winning the roundness of the female body, fruit , gentle landscapes ...".
  Leger created an original style in the depiction of human figures and objects from very generalized cylindrical, rounded shapes, reminiscent of the machine. In this new outlook everything gets organized. The artist states that "modern industry spreads, analyzes, understands found thousands of additions, rejects and discards all vague and uncertain ... The human body is regarded as a thing.'s Face, the plastic value - a ball, a sphere without a convex or concave elements. The nose, eyes considered as things, as things are modeled and well settled. " Man and the subject is often equated in the works of the artist and are interchangeable. Leger, liked to say that the color and shape - not artistic means, and the "intrinsic value", given the character of things. "Industrial style of the artist has been refined by their color-plastic qualities and had a great influence on the decorative arts. It is no accident and he Leger "came" in the monumental and decorative ceramics, mosaics, stained glass, tapestry.
Leger was among friends nicknamed "tyubist" (a play on words "tube-tubiste" - pipe-trubist), and a well-known critic Metzinger wrote: "Fernand Leger measures day and night, weighing the mass expected resistance. His compositions - a living body, bodies which are trees and human figures. Strict artist Fernand Leger is fond of this affecting the biology of the deep side of painting, which had a premonition of Michelangelo and Leonardo.
Fernand Leger himself claimed that follows the traditions of French Impressionism in which he was not satisfied with not an excess of color and the lack of constructive forces, which he "tried to build up gain, hypertrophy of the volume and plastic forms. Even in his first conceptual works of Fernand Leger, using items that subsequently became the basis of almost all his compositions - reminiscent of the details of the mechanisms of a truncated cone separated volumes and altered, deformed hands with the fingers tightly closed.
Fernand Leger did not try to imitate the Cubists, he took the disclosure of the essence volumes. And if you used a semitone Delaunay, Leger tried to show the sincerity of each color and volume. "I paint the living, - he said - I wanted to achieve clean, local colors to red was very red, blue - very blue." "Contrasts of Forms" by Fernand Leger sees not only in abstractions, but in things, and even in nature.
Leger considered himself a follower of Cezanne, stressed that using the "scenic contrasts of colors, lines, forms, can be" from the intense realism of "move to the cognitive.
In 1924, Leger offers a free art school. And in 1927, a student of this academy became Hope Khodasevich, talented girl from Belarus, which is a lifetime dream to get into the world capital of art.
In school Leger students are given free rein. "Do not repeat me - said the artist, - take from me what you want, and move on. You yourselves must feel when you cry out:" To hell with Leger!. "Nadia he first drew attention. She must have seemed strange: the silent high cheek-bones girl who did not respond to his jokes. In fact, it simply did not understand: it was barely enough French to ask for directions from passers-by. Eventually, after looking for work Khodasevich, Leger was struck by the skill and talent of foreign " dumb "and began to give her full attention.
This creative side of life Nadia brought a great joy. Leger, who believed Nadia their most talented student, offered her the post of assistant and an apartment in the Academy. And instill in her soul hope for the future. But on that day, when Nadia celebrated new home, World War II began. Leger, who had fought in World War I and gassed at Verdun, he decided to go to America and persistently called Nadia with him. In Marseille, a long time he did not sit down on the ship, hoping that she still change his mind and come. But she has not left Paris. Four years Nadia went on a knife edge, taking part in the resistance movement. Hiding, changed names and appearance - and never regretted that remained in France.
After the war, Nadia Khodasevich as if born anew. Returned Leger, resumed work at the academy, her work was exhibited, they were buying collectors. Picasso, highly creative tsenivshy Khodasevich, from time to time to invite her to him and demanded that she honestly expressed his recent works.
Nagy, resigned to his solitude, not expecting any surprises from life, but there was yet another unexpected turn. Widower Leger made her an offer. Nadia said the agreement and has made every effort to make the marriage happy.
Nadia was inseparable from her husband until his last breath, serving as the artist's talent continued after his death. The idea that the pictures Leger scatter in different collections, scatter all over the world, for it was unbearable. Having overcome many difficulties, she opened the museum in the south of France Fernand Leger. Nadia had dreamed of her husband to show his distant homeland. In America, Leger became a member of the French Communist Party and the attitude to Soviet Russia with great sympathy. But his trip to the Soviet Union did not take place.
The artist died on August 17, 1955 in the small town of Gif-sur-Yvette in the heart of France. After the death of Fernand Leger, his widow, Nadia became heir not only works, but also the ideas of her husband and teacher. She has devoted enormous time promoting his art. Thanks to her in 1960, Léger Museum was opened in biota. After 10 years the museum in biota and its collection were donated to the French government, after which he became the National Museum. In 1963, Nadia brought to the Leger painting exhibition in Moscow.
   She ran with all his soul to his country, loved and knew Russian culture, often visited in Moscow, was friends with Catherine Furtseva, Minister of Culture of the USSR. Through this friendship Nadia was largely determined by international cultural relations of the USSR at that time. She not only fulfilled a mosaic portrait of his influential friends, but also took under his wing wardrobe Furtseva, the most elegant ladies of the Soviet elite. In particular, as they say, the decision of the Politburo Nadia gave to build a house in Peredelkino, where she wanted to open a Museum of Fernand Leger. But her dreams were dashed, though - after her death, bought a house Zurab Tsereteli

[Wladzislaw]

A small biography of Hope Khodosevich-Leger (in Belarusian).