Plate (folio 15) from La Fin du monde filmée par l'ange de N.-D. (The End of the World Filmed by the Angel of Notre Dame)

Plate (folio 15) from La Fin du monde filmée par l'ange de N.-D. (The End of the World Filmed by the Angel of Notre Dame) by Fernand Léger is a significant example of French illustrated book production from 1919. This image is one of twenty-two individual pochoirs, six of which also incorporated a line block, commissioned for the complete volume. The choice of medium highlights the artist’s commitment to mass production aesthetics and graphic power in the immediate post-war era.

Léger utilized the demanding pochoir technique, a high-quality stencil printing process, often for its ability to deliver rich, saturated, and uniform fields of color. This sophisticated technique allowed him to achieve a striking graphic clarity defined by bold outlines and defined forms, marking his definitive pivot away from the fragmented compositions of pre-war Cubism. Created in 1919, the volume reflects the often satirical and anxious tone of the period following the devastation of World War I, aligning with rising Dada and early Surrealist movements prevalent in French cultural circles.

As an illustrated book, the complete La Fin du monde allowed Léger to explore the themes of mechanization, cinematic motion, and mass media, subjects central to his artistic output throughout the 1920s. Folio 15, like the other vibrant prints in the series, showcases his characteristic use of primary colors and highly geometric forms, lending the composition a dynamic, almost engineered quality appropriate for a title referencing a "filmed" apocalypse. Léger's experiments with print media and book arts in 1919 demonstrate his continuous effort to push artistic boundaries and formal vocabularies in the new decade. This important example of early twentieth-century French printmaking resides in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).