Deux oiseaux et une fleur 1953

Fernand Léger made this painting, "Deux oiseaux et une fleur," using oil on canvas, and it's all about simplification. He's got these bold colours blocked in, outlined in black, and this mechanical kind of line that feels both precise and playful. Looking closely, you see how the paint's applied pretty flat, without a ton of blending. The texture comes more from the canvas itself than from the brushstrokes, which are pretty disguised. There's a real sense of layering, almost like he's building up the image from different planes. Notice how the yellow background comes right up to the edges of the flower and birds, making them pop forward. It's like he's saying, "Here's a bird, here's a flower, but they're also just shapes doing their thing on a canvas." Léger's interest in machinery and the modern world really shows here. The clean lines and hard edges remind me a bit of Stuart Davis, another artist who found abstraction in the everyday. It's like they're both looking at the world and rearranging it into something new and exciting.