Machine with Red Square 1926

Willi Baumeister made this painting, Machine with Red Square, with oil on canvas. The palette is muted yet there’s this playful arrangement of shapes that feels like a machine in motion. For me, painting is always a process of building and rebuilding, much like constructing a machine, I guess. The surface has a smooth, almost matte finish which makes you wonder about the artist's hand; you don’t see brushstrokes so much as subtle modulations of color. Check out the way he layers the colours to give a shadow, it’s beautiful. The red square with the arrow, like a command in a diagram, pulls you in – a bold declaration amidst the greys and beiges. It's like a little theatre of forms performing on the canvas. It reminds me a bit of Léger, with its industrial undertones, but Baumeister has his own quiet voice, a certain restraint. It’s this tension between precision and intuition that makes it sing, a painting that invites you to invent your own narratives.