"Throughout the more than fifty years of his prolific career, Fernand Léger, one of the most influential of twentieth-century painters, wrote enthusiastic, lucid essays to explain his theories about the purposes of art, which he believed had an important role to play in modern life - not as decoration but as an embodiment of the modern spirit on all levels of society. 'The work of art remains for those who feel,' he wrote. 'It is their revenge on the intellectuals.'" -- from interior flap. Edited by Robert Motherwell and Edward F. Fry, with an introduction by George K.K. Morris. Translated by Alexandra Anderson. Bibliography compiled by Bernard Karpel. Includes a list of illustrations and index. Printed in black-and-white.