La Feuille (“The Leaf”) was carved in 1941, a period marked by war and upheaval. This marble sculpture captures Arp’s signature biomorphic style, fluid, balanced, and evocative of natural shapes. The leaf is a recurring motif in Arp’s work which becomes a vessel for metamorphosis, gently bridging the vegetal and the human, the symbolic and the sensual. In this sculpture, smooth undulations suggest both growth and surrender, a shape caught mid-transformation. It speaks in silence, like a fossilized breath of the natural world.

Presented within Mother Nature in the Bardo, La Feuille aligns with other works that evoke the liminal and the elemental, Monet’s atmospheric Giverny, Calder’s floral gouaches, or Hamilton’s ritual masks. Arp’s biomorphic form offers a moment of stillness and timelessness, reminding us that even in moments of upheaval, nature’s quiet intelligence endures in form, rhythm, and memory.