Still life in the machine elements 1918

Editor: Right in front of us, we have Fernand Léger’s “Still life in the machine elements,” from 1918. It is strikingly…mechanical. I see these cones and cylinders and I wonder how it relates to other still lifes. How do you interpret this work? Curator: Well, let's think about the materials. It's paint on canvas, sure, but look at what he's depicting. It isn't fruit or flowers; it’s elements of a machine. We need to consider this in its social context, in 1918, at the end of World War I, after a century of increasing industrialization. Editor: So the objects aren't "natural", they're made? Does that shift the purpose of a still life? Curator: Precisely! This is a still life of production, of the building blocks of industry. Look at the clean lines and simplified forms, how they reject organic shapes. Léger is showing us a world increasingly shaped by human labor and manufacture. He highlights materials and processes. Ask yourself, where do we find this celebration of materiality in everyday life? Editor: I guess in factories? Or, like, in product design today, maybe? It almost makes the *making* of things the point, not the thing itself. Curator: Exactly! It forces us to think about our relationship with industrial production and how it impacts our lives, aesthetically and economically. What do you take away now from that close looking? Editor: It feels like Léger isn’t just painting an image; he’s commenting on the means of *making* that image and all of our surroundings. The process itself becomes the message. Curator: Yes! Seeing art as a reflection of, and a participant in, the systems of production around it, gives us fresh appreciation for it.