ABSTRACT
Nearly all contemporary artists who have faced up to this crisis at all, have concentrated on the ensuing conflict of conscience. Leger was unique because he seized upon our technical achievements and by concentrating upon their real nature was led on to discover the spirit, the ethics, the attitude of mind, necessary to control and exploit them to our full advantage. As an artist Leger is often accused of being crude, vulgar, impersonal. Leger's greatest works are those which he painted since the war and those in which, dealing with the human figure, he expressed directly the profound humanism of his materialist philosophy. Leger began with the machine. His cubist pictures were untheoretical. In fact Leger was the only modern European artist to have created an heroic style. Leger rejected every implication of 'glamour'. 'Glamour' stands for everything that separates one person from another, whether it is their 'special' understanding of art or the colour of their lipstick.
