ART
Leger domain
EVAN ANTHONY
To those who go througli the motion without the necessary conviction, genuflection may place a strain upon the knee; and uninspired reverence can make unreasonable demands upon the brain. I have thus to resolve my dilemma regarding the `Leger and Purist Paris' exhibition, at the Tate, by concluding: admired it, a bit bored by him.
John Golding and Christopher Green have done a fine job of organising works of a period, 1918-1928, describing it as an `age of the achievement of a new order after the explosion of Cubism and Futurism.' With Leger used as the central figure, there is an attempt to place that decade in perspective, and in that respect, the exhibition is indeed quite impressive. The catalogue itself de- serves mention: a literate, intelligent, and comprehensive guide to the era it examines. But I am nagged by the feeling that the analysis offered is often more interesting than the work on view.
Picasso observed in a 1923 interview that `mathematics, trigonometry, chemistry, psychoanalysis, music and whatnot have been related to cubism to give it an easier interpretation—all this has been pure litera- ture, not to say nonsense, which brought bad results, blinding people with theories.' I don't know what the great man's current attitude may be towards art exhibitions of this sort, and I wouldn't want it inferred that I am accusing the historians and scholars of blind- ing the public with theories (if they are, they are ably abetted by the artists themselves, who appear not in the least reticent about speaking up). but there is enough concern with the theories expounded by cubists, pur- ists and simultaneists to satisfy the most avid semanticist. Inevitable, perhaps, that re- appraisal of a period should involve so much written reference, but it should also be emphasised, I think, that the aesthetic is the thing, and the compression of a work to fit into a theory may present the artist with an interesting exercise, but not necessarily with the inspiration that produces a 'work of art'.
Deploring as he does the imitation and copying of an object ('The mistake is to imitate, to copy the subject slavishly . . .'). Leger might not approve of painting a tin of soup so that it looked very much like a tin of soup, but philosophically he probably would applaud today's pop glorification of the housewife's answer-to the quick. lunch: 'I hate discreet painting. I can take a subject from anywhere. I like the forms necessitated by modern industry and I use them: a smelt- ing furnace will have thousands of coloured reflections both more subtle and more solid than a supposedly classical subject. I con- sider that a machine gun or the breech of a .75 is more worth painting than fgur apples or a Saint Cloud landscape ...'
His desire to pay homage to the mech- anical age and the life force of the city pro- vided him with the subject matter for much of his post-war work; but his style of paint- ing doesn't really inspire me to share the excitement he may have felt in celebrating the mechanical order of modern life. The paintings are too busy by far, housing a dis- tracting cacophony of forms. Even in a painting like Composition Abstraite, the
geometry threatens to get out of hand, but here his use of colour and arrangement of planes combine to give the painting an order I find lacking in much of his work. The fragmentation of shapes, whether in some- thing as abstract as Composition (1917-1918) or as figurative as Femme a Genou is tech- nically interesting but ultimately his use of this cubist technique.creates a somewhat cold and poster-like image.
But my own lack of enthusiasm for the leading man should not put you off seeing an exhibition that completes its study of an era with works by Mondrian, Ozenfant (whose Bouteilles, Pipe et Livres happily survives the artist's rigid attempts at purism), Picasso, Braque, Le Corbusier, Delaunay, Severini and others, all exhibited to advant- age in Neave Browne's tastefully designed gallery within the Gallery.
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