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Lot Essay
"The human body is of no weightier plastic interest than a tree, a plant, a piece of rock or a pile of rope. It is enough to compose a picture with these objects, being careful to choose those that may best create a composition. It is a question of choice on the artist's part. An example: if I compose a picture and use as an object a piece of tree bark, a fragment of a butterfly's wing, and also a purely imaginary form, it is likely that you will not recognize the tree bark or butterfly wing, and you will ask 'What does that represent?' Is it an abstract picture? No, it is a representational picture. What we call an abstract picture does not exist. There is neither an abstract picture nor a concrete one. There is a beautiful picture and a bad picture. There is the picture that moves you and the one that leaves you indifferent. A picture can never be judged by comparison to more or less natural elements. A picture has a value in itself, like a musical score, like a poem. Reality is infinite and richly varied. What is reality? Where does it begin? Or end? How much of it should exist in painting? Impossible to answer? A hand--a leaf--a revolver--a mouth-- an eye--these are 'objects.' The sentiment of beauty is completely independent of our comprehensive faculties- emotion, admiration, belong to the reality of sensibility" (Fernand Léger, 'The New Realism' 1935, reproduced in Fernand Léger, Functions of Painting, London, 1965, p. 111).