Page 31 - Studio International - September October 1975

Montparnasse, by 'the violence of pure summer of 1924 he sent instructions to International des Arts Décoratifs, its
col0urs,' 3 the clashing red, blue, green the c0ntract0r working on Ozenfant's tall narrow proportions perfectly adapted
and yellow of the illustration in studio h0use near the parc Montsouris to its position, its asymmetry set against
L'Architecture Vivante,19 giving an idea of giving details for the colouring of the the symmetry of the installation, and its
the quality of this violence. Léger's internal walls.' ° It was with Le Corbusier planar overlappings exchanging
repertoire of effects was extracted from in close contact that Léger worked out his complements with the superimposed
his most n0isy paintings of 1918-19,4 and new appr0ach to architectural painting, hanging planes of the central lights."
was apparently intended not to enhance and parallel with Le C0rbusier's coloured I suggested at the beginning that when
the architecture embellished, but rather interior for the Atelier Ozenfant he the Pavillon de L'Esprit Nouveau
to take control of it. The ammunition of produced two Peintures murales and a opened on 10 July 1925 the composition
Les Disques had found a new target. c0nsidered statement of his ideas, Léger hung there was Le Balustre),18. This
Perhaps the critic Waldemar George was suggestion is supported by almost all the
justified when he commented with sharp photographs of the Pavillon living-room
disapproval: 'The ensemble project for a published at the time and shortly
hall by Josef Csaky has been spoilt by afterwards.' 4 The Oeuvres Completes of
Léger's polychromy . . . Instead of Le Corbusier and the Almanach
animating it, the painter punches holes, d' Architecture Moderne published in 1926
cuts it up, fragments and destroys the fiat t0 substantiate the ideas behind the
harmony of the wall surface. Léger's
stance seems to have changed little from
the one he had taken up as an easel-
painter in his Valori Plastici statement of
1919: 'To me, "the opposite of a wall" is
a picture, with its verve and movement.'
It was, however, less than a year before
Léger had opened up a new r0ute away
from the architecturally destructive
attitudes behind the 1923 Indépendants
project; and the impetus without any
doubt came from the fast-accelerating
international movement towards a
`collective style' bringing architecture,
sculpture and painting together. The
crucial ingredient in his experience was Le Corbusier
the De Stijl exhibition held by Léonce Pavillon de L'Esprit Nouveau 1925
La Salle
Rosenberg during November 1923 at the
galerie de l'Effort Moderne, and in
particular the three villa projects with exhibition building include photographs
attendant plans and axonometric of nearly every other wall surface, and
projections by Theo van Doesburg and from these it seems that Léger was only
Cor van Eesteren (helped by Rietveld). given the one position in the living-room
Here, for the first time, Léger saw colour for his work. However, others have stated
given a role in architecture so that Léger painted abstract murals (more
fundamentally integrated with the than one) f0r the Pavill0n, and
essential nature of the wall that it could Le Balustre),18 is neither mural nor plural.'
itself become a primary architectural In 1950 Léger himself simply
element rather than a factor in applied Peinture Murale 1924 commented: 'I worked at this time (1925)
decorative design. The painter in a sense Oil on canvas, 70¾ x 31½ ins. with Le Corbusier on large mural
had become part-architect, working in Musée National de Fernand Leger, Biot compositions in pure colour without any
space with elementary colour planes. subject,'16 not mentioning the Pavillon at
Léger was instantly and deeply impressed `L'Architecture polychromie.'11 Painting all, and the daughter of Le Corbusier's
by what he saw, and the quality of his in architecture, he now insisted, far from br0ther Albert, who saw the building, has
response can easily be judged fr0m an challenging architecture, must perfectly said that she can remember no abstract
interview with a certain Monsieur 'X' harmonize with architecture even as it murals there. " Yet, intriguingly, when he
(very probably Le Corbusier) published answered man's need for 'live surfaces.' wr0te to Le Corbusier in November 1925
at the time in L'Esprit Nouveau. The painter in architecture's aim must about the collection of his work from the
Monsieur 'X' is sternly opposed to the be: 'T0 create a calm and anti-dynamic Pavilion, Léger referred to 'mes oeuvres'
effects destructive of a simple volumetric atmosphere, a coloured "plastic" order (implying more than merely Le
statement created by external polychromy inside and outside.'' In the Atelier Balustre),18 and it is tempting to speculate
in architecture (Léger and Csaky's 1923 Ozenfant and later the Villa La that the 1924 murals may in fact have
project had also announced a future for Roche-Jeanneret Le Corbusier worked been painted for the building and then
external polychromy),' but he feels that with whole wall-planes or at least large for some reason not actually hung. But
the interior use of the Dutch 'formula' has surfaces of a single colour, whereas Léger the truth is probably a little more
great potential. 'There you are, that is the in his Peintures murales restricted unexpected, for there was a single
pr0blem that excites me,' says Léger. himself to the far smaller surfaces of easel photograph of the living-room published
`Ah ! Thus to give architecture to a bank, painting broken up with still smaller in the winter 1925 number of
by planes of colour.' M0nsieur 'X' then planes; but both worked with subdued L'Architecture Vivante,19 which shows
asks him if he is n0w c0nvinced that browns, greens and with white allowing that for a while at least another Léger
unbroken planes of colour are in the vertical and horiz0ntal stabilizing hung in place of Le Balustre),18, a painting
themselves enough, and if therefore he control. Architectural painting, for Léger, which was far closer to the absolute
now rejects the decorative approach no longer merely embellished: it was abstraction of the Embassy hall mural and
behind his collaboration with Csaky. given the new status of a fundamental yet n0t completely a mural itself, the
`Precisely,' replies Léger, 'there is the architectural element possessed of the sombre Composition dated 1924 which
mistake; the walls must be complete same classical qualities — stability, was for many years a rather incongruous
wholes which are involved as units in the repose — as architecture itself resident in the St. John's Wood collection
equation." (architecture, that is, according to of E. L. T. Mesens.
At the end of 1923 Le Corbusier still Le Corbusier's definition of the term). I shall come back to Le Balustre),18 and the
thought architecturally in terms 0f the And certainly that was the status given 1924 Composition in their ideal Corbusian
white wall inside and out,' but, as his contribution to Mallet-Stevens's setting, but to see how Léger's approach
Richard Francis has established, in the Embassy hall in the 1925 Exposition to architectural painting fitted into its