Paysage Américain 1943

Fernand Léger made this painting, called Paysage Américain, with oil on canvas, and it looks like he was really letting loose with hard-edged abstraction. Léger's got this way of building up his forms with flat colors, like he's piecing together a puzzle of shapes. The surface feels kind of built up, and you can tell he wasn't trying to hide his brushstrokes. I mean, check out that yellow shape with the calendar bits stuck on. It's like a weird, deconstructed face, or maybe a building, all angular and bold. It’s so graphic. It reminds me a bit of Stuart Davis, another artist who was jazzed about American life, especially its signage and architecture. But where Davis goes all jazzy and syncopated, Léger keeps things a bit more grounded, more structural. What I love about abstract paintings like this is how they become something else every time you look at them.