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Fernand Léger, The Great Parade (definitive state), 1954

Unlike many of his School of Paris colleagues, Fernand Léger eschewed using collaged fragments to represent everyday life, instead developing proletarian themes that he executed in ever larger formats. The Great Parade is the summation of his lifelong attempt to devise an imagery of the everyday within the realm of painting. It was preceded by hundreds of preparatory studies in which Léger methodically resolved every detail of the complex composition. The stately procession of figures is couched in the rhetoric of monumental history painting with only the integrity of its subject matter saving it from the pomposity of a modern allegory.

This subject matter reveals Léger’s political sympathies and intentions. An ardent believer in equality, and apparently in the equality of the sexes as well, Léger depicted men and women as indistinguishable equals on a wide swath of blue. The composition further relates to the concept of leisure and its indexation to class. The lower classes did not know leisure time until the late 19th century, when labor-saving industrialization and transportation advances made vacations possible. The circus is a place where all people are equal, united in their enjoyment of the spectacle. Its capacity to entertain became a metaphor for Léger’s vision of art as a vehicle for the transformation of society. His hope was to create a painting with universally appealing values. Seemingly timeless, Léger’s work was didactically intended to remind people of their fundamental right to self-fulfillment.

The Great Parade (definitive state) (La Grande parade [état définitif]), 1954. Oil on canvas, 117I 3/4 X 157 1/2 inches. 62.1619