Peinture imaginaire 1939 - 1952

Fernand Léger painted this “Imaginary Painting” with oils, and just imagine the flat planes of colour he was pushing around, trying to make them sing! I can imagine him in his studio, trying to get those biomorphic shapes to align, pushing and pulling the paint, trying to get it just so. The yellows and blues are fighting for attention in the background. Then you’ve got the cartoon-like elements to the foreground; the colours are so flat and the outlines so strong. And I can see that he’s also thinking about other artists like, say, Miró, because there’s something playful and buoyant about it. But Léger has his own distinct way of creating a composition: all those hard edges and clear colours. What a conversation those two were having! Painting can be an embodied expression which embraces ambiguity, a place for different interpretations and meaning. I reckon that's what Léger was aiming at here.