Le compotier rouge 1925

Fernand Léger made this painting, Le compotier rouge, with oil on canvas. Léger’s work often brings together the organic and the mechanical. Here he seems to be playing with a limited range of colours, and he’s using them to flatten the picture plane while also describing three dimensional forms. The painting is full of tensions. Look at the upper right where he paints a heavy iron and a silver pipe. He uses grey tones to imply volume and metallic surfaces, but the rendering is strangely flat. Notice the red brushstrokes which form the base of the compotier. These marks act as planes both supporting and segmenting the objects above. Léger’s work is said to be influenced by Cezanne. Like Cezanne, he’s interested in the underlying structure of objects and the way we see, but he’s pushing this in a more contemporary, industrial direction. It is also possible to see something of Leger’s influence in the work of Pop Artists like Roy Lichtenstein. His subject matter may be different, but like Léger he shows us the world in a bold and newly energised way.