THE SEARCH FOR MODERN BEAUTY: FERNAND LÉGER AND BALLET MÉCANIQUE
THE SEARCH FOR MODERN BEAUTY: FERNAND LEGER AND BALLET MECANIQUE

Summary/Abstract: The artistic avant-garde of the first decades of the 20th century was a unique phenomenon in the history of art, decisive for its future evolution. If previous interpretations underlined its revolutionary nature, absolutizing the radicality of its break with the past, more recent approaches have proved to be much more nuanced, highlighting the complexity, sometimes contradictory, of the avant-garde and thus imposing the abandonment of any reductionist interpretation. Within this context, the present study focuses on an important creation of the period, Fernand Léger’s Ballet mécanique, arguing that it can be best understood as an expression of the tendency, essential for most avant-gardists, to resume a dialogue with artistic tradition and not radically reject it.

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