Gazette du Bon Ton, 1921 - No. 7, Pl. 51: The country girl 1921

This is 'The Country Girl', a print made by Charles Martin in 1921. It's one of a series of fashion plates for the Gazette du Bon Ton. Look at the way Martin's playing with those simplified forms! I can imagine him puzzling over how to capture the essence of a girl, a landscape, using as few lines as possible. He’s flirting with cubism but never fully going there. The architectural lines feel a bit like Léger, but the colours are softer, more decorative. I wonder if he spent hours arranging those geometric shapes, trying to find the perfect balance between representation and abstraction? That restricted palette of greens, greys, creams, and whites gives the picture a kind of cool elegance. It's interesting how commercial art borrows from and feeds into the avant-garde. Artists are always looking, absorbing, riffing off each other. And in the end, we're left with this playful image that’s both of its time and completely timeless.