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Lot Essay
"I need to tell you about the importance of circuses in provincial towns it's live performance. [...] Without a doubt, circus was the event of my childhood, and here it is coming back in my paintings" Fernand Léger, cited in Cahiers d'Art, Paris, 1954, p. 157.
In the later part of his career, Fernand Léger repeatedly introduced references to the world of circus, until it became a central theme at the origin of some of his last great works. Circus indeed has everything the artist could want: it recalls the nostalgia of his childhood as a regular spectator of the Medrano circus, it is a popular entertainment where social classes disappear, and formally it allows rich studies on contrasts of movement and form, which were so dear to him. While most of the works inspired by circus emerge in the 1940's, the present work is an early example of this trend prefiguring later monumental compositions showing cyclists, divers, acrobats and musicians. In our work, the generous and soft strokes contrast with the more rigid compositions of the Purist years.
Cirque nonetheless remains a work where contrasts of form and movement prevail. The stillness of the ladder offsets the dynamism of the spiral, and the horizontality of the reclining woman completes the verticality of the standing guitar player. With this vibrant balance, Cirque manages to express the energy of the modern world, as Léger conceived it.
In the later part of his career, Fernand Léger repeatedly introduced references to the world of circus, until it became a central theme at the origin of some of his last great works. Circus indeed has everything the artist could want: it recalls the nostalgia of his childhood as a regular spectator of the Medrano circus, it is a popular entertainment where social classes disappear, and formally it allows rich studies on contrasts of movement and form, which were so dear to him. While most of the works inspired by circus emerge in the 1940's, the present work is an early example of this trend prefiguring later monumental compositions showing cyclists, divers, acrobats and musicians. In our work, the generous and soft strokes contrast with the more rigid compositions of the Purist years.
Cirque nonetheless remains a work where contrasts of form and movement prevail. The stillness of the ladder offsets the dynamism of the spiral, and the horizontality of the reclining woman completes the verticality of the standing guitar player. With this vibrant balance, Cirque manages to express the energy of the modern world, as Léger conceived it.