La Petite parade 1953

Fernand Léger made "La Petite Parade" with oil on canvas, and what strikes me is how grounded it is in process. It’s like he’s saying, here’s the bare minimum, and it’s enough. The colors are really direct, bold, like primary school stuff, and there’s this amazing tension between the flat planes and the attempt at volume. Look at the acrobat’s arms—they’re these solid, dark shapes, but then they bend and imply a body in motion. The paint isn’t trying to hide; it’s right there, thick in some spots, thin in others, letting you see how it was pushed around. There's a similar simplification of form in the work of Elizabeth Murray, who also created her own vocabulary of abstracted forms, and developed an original vision of abstract painting. It feels like Léger is inviting us to see the world not as a picture, but as a construction. A parade of shapes, colors, and gestures.