Machine Man with Spiral Turn 1930

Willi Baumeister made this painting, Machine Man with Spiral Turn, using oil paint with a very smooth surface. I see a playful, and thoughtful working through a limited palette and a defined vocabulary of forms; rectangles, squares, circles, and curved lines. Look at the way he's used a subdued palette, almost monochromatic, but then punctuated it with these diagonal stripes. Those stripes, painted in tones of brown and cream, add visual interest and a kind of dynamic energy to the otherwise cool, almost clinical composition. They act like a counterpoint to the machine-like stillness, introducing a human, fallible touch. It’s as if Baumeister is showing the beauty in the way something is constructed. It reminds me of Leger, another artist interested in the visual language of machines, but Baumeister's feels more personal, more like a portrait than a diagram. It feels as though he is using abstraction to get to the core of something, like a haiku, where less is always more.