Gleizes was also one of the few French painters of the 1920s to recognise nonrepresentational painting as the logical development of Cubism." "His work as a painter is accompanied by an immense body of theoretical work, addressing the question posed so starkly by Duchamp and Picabia: why should we paint? What is the justification for the work of art? Over his life he touches on many spheres of human activity - religious, political and cultural history, physics and the philosophy of work.".