Life’s Evolution

Ceaseless movement of space and time are at the heart of Leger’s piece. Chock full of every color and shape imaginable, the piece itself truly is “the city”: full of wonder, ingenious…effervescent. Life is always moving, developing. Going, jumping. This is the key message. The chaos manifests the never-pausing nature of life. People get hurt, people die, buildings are razed, trees disappear; yet everything advances. People are born, buildings are erected, and trees are planted. Progress is made.
Industry shines through in the robot-like figures and angular, geometric forms. Bright and new replaces old and useless. Every small instant is overtaken by large, sweeping designs. Bold and bigger is better. Life is fleeting. Quiet, muted stillness is no longer the standard; noise is essential. Without these elements, there is no hope for life in this fast-pace world. There is no meaning, no movement. There is just blankness with no color, no buzz. What is left? Nothing. This is unsustainable. Life needs to move forward, not back. There is no room for the past. Flowing; past becomes present, present becomes future. Industry and expansion become the ever-impending future. Life becomes industry, always striving to produce perfection.
Leger envisions industry as a utopia in “The City”. Geometry, steel, pipes, bridges and skyscrapers are his heaven. Manifest Destiny is his god. Pandemonium is his mantra. Industry is the heartbeat of life and will continue until the end of time. “The City” with its rainbow of colors, wonder, ingeniousness, effervescence, boldness and rushed feeling, is life. It is a landscape that never stays still, every fiber seeming as if it only lasts a second before transforming into something else. There is no prediction as to what will come next and no way to stop it. As Bob Dylan sings in his song “The Times They Are A- Changin’”: “The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast/ the slow one now will later be fast/ As the present now will later be past/ The order is rapidly fadin’/ and the first one now will later be last/ for the times they are a-changin.”