Fernand Léger

Jennifer Tonkovich: This drawing participates in the long tradition of still life, but it also embodies Fernand Léger's aspirations as a painter of modern life. He once wrote, "The beautiful is everywhere, perhaps more in the arrangement of your saucepans on the white walls of your kitchen than in your 18th century living room or in the official museums." Rejecting the art of the Italian Renaissance, which he perceived as imitative rather than innovative, Léger preferred works of popular and ancient art, as well as the art of certain French masters, including Ingres and Cézanne. In this sheet, squared for transfer to a canvas, a common beer mug sits on a tabletop that is tipped forward in the manner of a Cézanne still life. The subject is particularly notable in light of Léger's valorization of the French working class. Wary of the excesses of commercial capitalism, Léger sought in his art to situate objects of mass consumption, which possess a beauty of their own, within balanced and harmonious compositions. Here, patterns drawn on the surface of the mug echo the curves of the vessel itself, as well as other objects on the table. The drapery to the right possesses the regularity of a mechanically produced object, while the checkered kitchen floor is treated as pure pattern, tipped up so that it is nearly parallel to the picture plane.