費爾南·雷捷

坎魏勒畫廊（丹尼爾·亨利·坎魏勒），巴黎（發票編號1518；應為1914年8月或之前購自畫家；1914年12月12日遭扣押；售出：巴黎圖歐拍賣會，1923年5月7日，拍品編號69（共39件紙本作品））
（應為）現代奮力畫廊（萊昂斯·羅森伯格），巴黎（購自上述拍賣）
賽登伯格畫廊，紐約（1968年或之前購入）
私人收藏，美國（1974年或之前購自上述畫廊）
自此家族傳承

紐約，賽登伯格畫廊，〈費爾南·雷捷：水粉、水彩及素描作品1910-1953年〉，1968年，品號6，圖錄載圖

洛杉磯，洛杉磯藝術博物館及紐約，大都會藝術博物館，〈立體主義時代〉，1971年，品號186，圖錄載圖

紐約，勒納·赫納畫廊，〈近觀F.雷捷〉，1974年，品號2（紀年1913）

克里斯托弗·格林，《雷捷與前衛藝術》，紐海文及倫敦，1976年，品號40，66頁載圖

道格拉斯·庫珀，《立體主義時代》，倫敦，1994年，品號186，收錄於297頁，93頁載圖

In 1913 Léger embarked on a series of works collectively entitled Contrastes de formes that are now recognized as his most important contribution to twentieth century art. This revolutionary series, which consisted of some of the first abstract paintings and works on paper, were developed through Léger’s pursuit of the concept of "Pure Art" a style of representation that was devoid of direct reference to visual reality, yet which explores the relationship between shape and tone through geometric abstraction.

In the Contrastes de formes, he experimented radically with the plastic qualities of form, line and color, replacing basic components of the human anatomy or landscapes with geometric shapes, and retaining only two crucial elements of traditional visual representation – the construction of pictorial depth and the modelling of form using light and dark. In the works on paper, such as the present sheet, the rejection of color further enforced the radical nature of his technique, in a similar way Picasso and Braque had in their analytical cubist works. However, though considered a Cubist by his association with the two leading figures of the movement, Léger did not attempt to recreate a literal representation of objects in their totality as they had, but rather exclude objects in their entirety. Léger’s personal contribution to the movement developed in the Contrastes de formes was to further develop the dynamic possibilities inherent in trying to represent simultaneity, an aim held in common with his Futurist contemporaries Umberto Boccioni and Gino Severini who celebrated the age of the machine and movement. Léger incorporated this mechanized aesthetic into his art in an attempt to reveal the vitality and beauty that was inherent in geometric form.

Taking Cézanne as a starting point and building on the innovations of Picasso and Braque, Léger created an entirely new abstract language. “Léger's early reputation rested upon the fact that he was able to develop his own version of Cubism, and one so original that it almost seemed as if it could have been invented without that of Picasso or Braque. Indeed so persuasive was the 'cubism' of Léger's, as it was called, that it alone probably would have insured him a place in the history of modern painting, even if he had not survived World War I... Like his contemporaries Picasso and Braque, Léger was enormously affected by and indebted to the art of Cézanne, whom he saw as a transitional figure between traditional and modern painting. It was Cézanne, Léger wrote in 1913 while he was painting the Contrastes de Formes pictures, who has 'understood everything that was incomplete in traditional painting' and who had 'felt the necessity for a new form and draftsmanship closely linked to the new color.' And it was Cézanne, Léger wrote the following year, who 'was the only one of the Impressionists to lay his finger on the deeper meaning of plastic life, because of his sensitivity to the contrasts of forms” (J. Flam in Fernand Léger (exhibition catalogue), Acquavella Galleries Inc., New York, 1987, p. 10).

In his essays of 1913 to 1923, Léger set out his pictorial aesthetic as epitomized in the Contrastes de formes series of 1913. Explaining Legér's aims and quoting from his essays, Dorothy Kosinski wrote: “One essential tenet of this aesthetic was the equation “Contrast = dissonance, [achieving] a maximum of expressive effect”. This was Legér's battle-cry against traditional notions of pictorial realism which were bound to sentiment, representation and popular expressions of the subject... For him, the dynamic dissonance of form, line and color was the delineation of, indeed, the direct result of, rupture and change in the modern world: 'Present-day life, more fragmented and faster moving than life in previous eras, has had to accept as its means of expression an art of dynamic divisionism'" (D. Kosinski, Fernand Léger, 1911-1924, The Rhythm of Modern Life, Munich & New York, 1994, p. 17).