1924

Animated Landscape

French, 1881 - 1955

In the early 1920s, Fernand Léger began to integrate more readily identifiable human figures into his compositions, focusing particularly on the relationship between people and their modern, mechanized environment. Painted after a trip to Venice in the summer of 1924, Animated Landscape depicts the seated artist on the left and the standing figure of his dealer, Léonce Rosenberg, proprietor of the Galerie de l'Effort Moderne in Paris, on the right. Sporting hats and suits, the two men are presented as simplified, schematized figures amidst a dense city scene composed of rigid geometric elements, including a boat and a footbridge, which the artist arranged to create a sense of receding space.