L.2013.6.18: L'Elan, no. 2 (May 1, 1915)

The journal L’Elan was founded as a way for some members of the Parisian avant-garde to voice their support for the French war effort. Its publisher, the painter Amédée Ozenfant, had worked in the publications department of the propaganda service in Paris, and this background is reflected in the journal’s allegorical covers. Number 2, for example, depicts a Gallic rooster—a symbol of the French nation—in battle with a German eagle over Alsace. Ozenfant also sponsored monthly meetings attended by Picasso, Matisse, and Apollinaire, and in 1918 he collaborated with the architect Le Corbusier to establish Purism, an aesthetic movement they considered to be a refinement of Cubism.