La Plume Jaune 1912

Jean Metzinger painted *La Plume Jaune* with oil on canvas, and what strikes me is how he’s embraced the process of breaking down form. You can see it in the way he’s built up the image from these crystalline shapes. Look at the face. It's not about smooth blending, it's more about the edges, the facets of the form. The colour palette is restrained, mostly greys and browns. There's a deliberate flatness, as if to challenge the traditional illusion of depth. Then there's that stark red slash of lipstick. It's almost jarring, and that one confident move creates a focal point, anchoring the rest of the composition. Metzinger reminds me of a slightly earlier Picasso. There’s that same interest in fragmentation. But Metzinger seems to have a lighter touch. His work is a reminder that art is an ongoing conversation, a series of experiments where nothing is ever truly finished or resolved.