Lot Essay
Throughout his career Lger utilized the activity of drawing as an essential means in the development of his art. Many drawings and watercolors can be directly related to paintings (see lot 346); these often trace the evolution of an idea from one stage to the next, from inception through remarkably varied permutations to a definitive state. Indeed, the artist often painted several versions of the same subject, with drawings acting as the bridge between them.
Existing alongside this body of relateable studies, there is also a large number of works whose correspondences are less clear. While they partake of certain motifs that are familiar from a particular year or phase in the artist's career, it is difficult to trace them to a specific subject in the artist's oil paintings. Compositions avec lements mcaniques, (lot 341), is one such drawing, and represents a completely self-contained work of art, improvised and carried quickly to its own state of perfection. The present watercolor is another and represents the variety and fluency with which Lger could express himself using the newly formed vocabulary he developed in the late 1910s and early 1920s. The use of mechanical and geometric elements relates it to the early phase of his "mechanical period," before the re-introduction of the figure. The clarity and relative complexity of the forms seen here herald the new classicizing trend that was overtaking painting after the First World War.
"It was above all the synchronization of mechanical forms that preoccupied Lger in the architectonic organization of his drawings: the plans and sections govern the charges and impulses and determine the balance of the composition. 'The mechanical element is not a set purpose, an attitude, but a way of achieving a feeling of strength and power,' he [Lger] said" (J. Leymarie and J. Cassou, Fernand Lger: Drawings and Gouaches, London, 1973, p. 46)
Existing alongside this body of relateable studies, there is also a large number of works whose correspondences are less clear. While they partake of certain motifs that are familiar from a particular year or phase in the artist's career, it is difficult to trace them to a specific subject in the artist's oil paintings. Compositions avec lements mcaniques, (lot 341), is one such drawing, and represents a completely self-contained work of art, improvised and carried quickly to its own state of perfection. The present watercolor is another and represents the variety and fluency with which Lger could express himself using the newly formed vocabulary he developed in the late 1910s and early 1920s. The use of mechanical and geometric elements relates it to the early phase of his "mechanical period," before the re-introduction of the figure. The clarity and relative complexity of the forms seen here herald the new classicizing trend that was overtaking painting after the First World War.
"It was above all the synchronization of mechanical forms that preoccupied Lger in the architectonic organization of his drawings: the plans and sections govern the charges and impulses and determine the balance of the composition. 'The mechanical element is not a set purpose, an attitude, but a way of achieving a feeling of strength and power,' he [Lger] said" (J. Leymarie and J. Cassou, Fernand Lger: Drawings and Gouaches, London, 1973, p. 46)