157

  • Femme à la cruche (Woman with Pitcher)

  • 1928
  • After Fernand Léger (French 1881-1955), etched by Jacques Villon (French 1875-1963)
  • Color aquatint, engraving and roulette, proof aside from the edition of 200
  • 47.6 x 31.4 cm., 18-11/16 x 12-5/16" image
  • Catherine Carter Goebel, Paul A. Anderson Chair in the Arts Purchase, Paul A. Anderson Art History Collection, Augustana College 2001.18

Essay by Dan Pearson, Class of 2007

Léger's early works had their basis in geometry, while simplifying objects into shapes and dehumanizing people into tubular constructions. After the war, Léger continued with Cubism and applied more industrial themes to his paintings. His subjects took on a machine-like design, almost to the point of seeming robotic. Arthur Danto aptly considered that ".the term 'mechanical' seems fitter than 'cubist' to represent his [paintings]" (Danto).

In Femme à la Cruche (1928), it is immediately apparent that each segment of the woman is individual from the next. Each body part is its own shape, except for the continuity of the neck and chest, which is broken up by the yellow necklace. The right forearm is particularly rounded as if a tear was turned horizontally-even the fingers are drawn as being separate from the hand, as though they are an entirely different entity. The face of the figure is nearly expressionless, appearing impassive or trance-like. When this print was created in 1928, industrialization was nearing full swing and some expressed concern as to what the future held for humans.

The vase that she holds represents the strong vertical element that is present in nearly every work by Léger. This is caused by his Cubist influence, which, along with its emphasis on geometry, generally represented the same object from different perspectives (web gallery 158). The color scheme is bold and simple, made up of primary and secondary colors that are outlined in black.

The simplicity echoes the paintings of Paul Cézanne, who often simplified his composition into a few colors-consisting primarily of orange and blue. In his early works, Léger used a wide range of colors, but by 1910 he had begun to limit his palette. Léger's evolution to industrial or mechanical art influenced aspiring and upcoming artists who moved into abstraction. The idea that form was more important than color might not continue, but form remained important as artists such as Piet Mondrian composed works in reductive abstractions.