Artwork serves to show us different ways to look at the world. They sharpen our ability to understand and deal with new situations. A master of showing real world situations and ideas in his paintings is Fernand Leger. In Still Life with a Beer Mug Leger uses this technique to relay more than one way to look at the working class of 1920's.
Born in France in 1881 Fernand Leger would grow up to be many things including a draughtsman, illustrator, printmaker, stage designer, filmmaker, ceramicist, and painter. In the first half of the 20th Century he was one of the most prominent artists in Paris. Around the 1910's Leger was a part of the cubist movement, when he developed Still Life with a Beer Mug. After going into his realist imagery period in the 1950's, Leger died in 1955, but will always be immortalized through his work.
Like any great artist Fernand Leger has been criticized over and over again. Waldemar Janvszczak ( say that 10 times fast), author of Techniques of the Great Masters of Art, is one such critic. While analyzing the painting Still Life with a Beer Mug, he pointed out the contrast of the curtains, objects on the table, and the interior view of the mug against the flat geometric shapes and patterns of the rest of the painting. According to Janvszczak, Leger did not want to copy manufactured objects, instead he wished to paint in a way as to make their "clean, precise beauty" a challenge and the distorted look is the final result. This also represents how the life of the lower and middle class is twisted and distorted by the "methodical preparation and execution of work.".
The beer mug is the central point in the painting and is also the most colorful. I believe this represents the dreams and desires if the lower class workers that have little hope of escaping the low paying hard work. The monotonous work is represented by the black and white patterned background.
