Project for a mural 1952

Fernand Léger made this ‘Project for a mural’ painting with oil on canvas, but it's undated. The guy really embraces the joy of pure, unadulterated color. These aren't colors trying to mimic the real world, no sir. Léger’s laying down shapes with colors that feel like they're vibrating against each other: reds, blues, greens, yellows, blacks, all playing together in a way that feels both industrial and totally alive. And look at the edges of those shapes. They're hard, definite. He’s not blending or blurring. Léger's letting each color do its thing, side by side, creating this kind of visual push-and-pull. There’s a really interesting cluster of squiggles and dots in the center. The forms suggest some kind of machine or maybe even a face. You know, this feels like it could be related to some of Stuart Davis' stuff, that bold American take on Cubism, but Léger had his own thing going. He wasn’t afraid to throw it all together, color and form, abstraction and suggestion. A playful project indeed.