Les Toits 1954 - 1955

Fernand Léger made this watercolor and ink drawing of rooftops sometime during his career, and it’s all about how lines can make a world. I love the way he balances a kind of architectural precision with these free-flowing, almost cartoonish clouds. The black ink outlines give everything a solid, graphic quality, but then he fills in with these soft, diluted washes of color. Look at the yellow triangle – it’s like a solid object, but the color is so sheer, it almost breathes. That tension between the hard edges and the gentle color is what makes it so engaging for me. It’s as if he’s showing us the bones of the city, but also letting us feel its pulse. It reminds me a bit of Stuart Davis, who was also playing with similar ideas of urban space and abstraction around the same time. It’s all about seeing the world in new ways, and Léger does that with such playful confidence.