It is an outrage towards the masses.... It's wanting to treat them as though they're incapable of raising themselves up to this new realism [promoted by Léger and Le Corbusier] which is that of their area, which they've made with their hands.... To want to say to these men 'the modern is not for you it's an art for the rich bourgeoisie..'

Fernand Léger - The Later Years -, catalogue edited by Nicolas Serota, published by the Trustees of the Whitechapel Art gallery, London, Prestel Verlag, 1988, p. 58