The album "Circus" 1950

Fernand Léger made this painting for the "Circus" album, using bold, flat colors and simplified forms. Léger's got this way of making everything feel solid, like it's built from blocks. Look at the pure, unmodulated color; the blue and the red, how they sit next to each other, no blending or shading. It's like he's constructing the image rather than painting it, emphasizing the object-ness of the painting itself. There's a playful ambiguity too. Is that a yellow hand inside a green frame, or some kind of strange heraldic device? Léger's lines are so clean and precise, you get the sense he’s aiming for clarity, yet the overall image remains elusive, like a puzzle that refuses to be solved. It reminds me of the way Picabia played with machine-like forms, but Léger's got a warmth and a sense of humor that’s all his own. Art's just an ongoing conversation, right? Each artist chipping in their two cents, adding to the beautiful mess.