Fine Arts Associates, New York
Frances Gershwin Godowsky, New York

After a period of working with abstract imagery, Léger returned to the use of realistic subjects for his paintings in the 1940s and '50s.  Léger did not view this change as a rejection of the aims of abstraction, however, but rather as a way of continuing to pursue the aims of pure painting with a new vocabulary.  Léger wrote in 1950, “New subjects, envisaged with the contribution of the freedoms that previous experimentation has offered, must emerge and establish themselves.”  The goals were still the same, according to Léger, whether the image included objects from the everyday world or was completely abstract,  “The plastic life, the picture, is made up of harmonious relationships among volumes, lines, and colors.  These are the three forces that must govern works of art.  If, in organizing these three essential elements harmoniously, one finds that objects, elements of reality, can enter into the composition, it may be better and may give the work more richness.  But they must be subordinated to the three essential elements mentioned above" (Beth Handler, Fernand Léger, (exhibition catalogue), Museum of ꦡModern Art, New York, 1998, p. 247).

L'Atelier de Chevreuse is a wonderful example of this approach to painting that Léger described in 1950.  This deceptively simple composition is actually a complex combination of the organic forms of the flowers and leaves set against the vertical stripes of the background, and the diagonal forms at the center.  Léger also combines three-dimensional forms such as the vase, potted plant and other objects highlighted by geometric planes of color that serve as devices to set objects in both the background and foreground.  There is no clearly defined table that supports the objects that comprise the still life; instead a dizzying array of colliding cubist-like planes create the suggested table top.  Rather than a depiction of simple objects, L'Atelier de Chevreuse is, in fact, a composition of, in Léger’s w😼ords, “harmonious relationships among volumes, lines and colors.”