The man in the blue hat 1937

Fernand Léger made this painting of a man in a blue hat with oil on canvas, and I wonder if you can feel him working out how to fit all those shapes together too. I imagine him, thinking about how to distill the world into its basic forms, like a robot version of cubism. Those blocks of color, the outlines, and the way the man is holding those flowers... I can almost feel the texture of the canvas, the way he must have applied the paint, layer after layer, deciding which shapes would sit together harmoniously. Léger's got these curved lines playing off of the angular forms, right? He's doing something interesting with depth and perspective, flattening it all out while still suggesting a kind of space. He's in conversation with Picasso, but also with industrialization. It reminds me that every painting is a conversation, not just with the artist, but with everyone who's ever picked up a brush. And it invites us to join in, to bring our own perspectives and experiences to the mix.