Charles Darwent welcomes an exhibition dedicated to the French painter/film-maker, who took inspiration from mechanical modern life to develop his own take on Cubism
SOME critics never learn. When Louis Vauxcelles, outraged at finding paintings by Matisse and his circle hung around a Donatello at the 1905 Autumn Salon in Paris, thundered that the Italian was ‘surrounded by wild beasts’, his young French targets clapped their hands. They would now be known, unforgettably, as les fauves (the wild beasts), their school as Fauvism.
Taking nothing from this bellyflop, Vauxcelles tried again. Writing of the cylindrical forms in a set of canvases at the 1911 Salon des Indépendants, the critic harrumphed that this was not Cubism at all, but mere ‘Tubism’. And thus, at a stroke, another star was born.
The man whose career Vauxcelles inadvertently launched was called Fernand Léger. The son of a Norman cattle farmer, Legér, aged 19, had renounced a career as an architect and left for Paris to study art. Paris was most certainly not Argentan.
Signing on at the famously avant-garde Académie Julian, Léger toyed, as most student painters of his day did, with Impressionism. Then, in 1904, he saw a Cézanne retrospective at the Autumn Salon and never looked back. Together with Picasso and Braque, he’s credited with inventing Cubism, although, as we have seen, he soon developed a tubular style of his own.
Denne historien er fra February 13, 2019-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra February 13, 2019-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds
