Fernand Leger

Leger was a painter aswell as film maker , his paintings and films are both considered within the cubo-futurist genre of art. Its interesting  comparing both Legers paintings and films. Cubism is the disective , investigative process of painting an object. contradictory light sources are a character of cubism. . Futurism the movement which Leger was placed more comfortably encompasses a more irresponsible application of colour is , speed, violence and energy are also character to futurism . Legers obsession with light is what pulled him to the camera, and Ballet Mechanique is his most prominent production.  Neither abstract nor narrative, it is a series of images of a woman's lips and teeth, close-up shots of ordinary objects, and repeated images of human activities and machines in rhythmic movement. Looking upon his paintings in contrast to Ballet Mechanique is interesting. The sharp, geometric, confronting imagery  of futurism seems  remote to the soft , playful , slow steady pace of Ballet Mechanic. The common ground is the investigation of the object, finding a modern object.It makes perfect sense why Leger moved from  kinetic painting to filming movement.