The album "Circus" 1950

Fernand Léger made "Circus" using lithography, and what strikes me is how he uses the flat, bold colors not to describe, but to build a world. He wasn't trying to trick you into thinking this was real life; it's more like an invitation into his own way of seeing. Look at that band of black behind the central figure. It's not really a shadow, is it? It's more like an anchor, giving her presence a weight, a reality that vibrates against the pastel shades around her. It's such a playful, intuitive move. The paint is laid down so simply, almost like cut paper, and the colors are not quite harmonious, there is something wonderfully disjointed. Léger reminds me a bit of Stuart Davis, both playing with abstraction and representation, with flattened perspectives. But Léger’s circus feels a little less jazzy, more grounded, more about the raw physicality of being. The circus is a spectacle and a dream and Léger turns it into something solid and real with colour.