The Сity 1919

Fernand Léger made this painting, The City, with oil on canvas at some point in his career. It's a flat world of sharp angles and bold colours, like he's building with paint. Léger isn't trying to trick us into thinking we're seeing reality, more like giving us the ingredients for our own urban daydream. The surface is so smooth it feels like he's sanded it down. Look at the way the light bounces off those planes of red and purple. It's like he's not just painting a city, he's building one, layering colours like bricks. Those ladders and staircases are almost funny, going nowhere, existing more as shapes than as things to be used. Léger feels like a cousin to the Futurists, like Giacomo Balla, who was similarly obsessed with capturing the dynamism of modern life. But where the Futurists were all about speed, Léger seems more interested in the simple joy of putting shapes together. It's a reminder that art is always a conversation, never a monologue.