Deux femmes couchées 1913

Fernand Léger made "Deux femmes couchées," with crayon and gouache on paper, and right away you can see he's thinking about how forms bump up against each other, the push-and-pull of edges. Look at how Léger uses black crayon to define the shapes, giving a crisp structure to the figures. Then he fills some of these forms with a luscious, creamy white gouache. These white shapes aren’t quite contained. It's like the forms are bursting, a controlled explosion. Notice in the upper right of the piece how he suggests coils or springs using a scribbled line. It creates a great tension. Léger’s work here makes me think of Stuart Davis, another artist who loved jazz and translating its rhythms into visual forms. What I love about this piece is how it embraces a certain kind of beautiful awkwardness, it's that awkwardness that makes it so dynamic.