Matière et Lumière ou le Christ au Tétramorphe 1934

Albert Gleizes painted "Matière et Lumière ou le Christ au Tétramorphe" using oil on board, and you can see the board peeking through the paint. It's a grounding color. Gleizes’s application feels considered; he’s building it up, bit by bit. There’s a beautiful tension between the flat planes and cubistic structure, like he's reinterpreting a medieval fresco. Look how he uses color sparingly; the blues and reds are placed like musical notes, punctuating the ochre. I love the way the bands of color create a halo effect around the central figure. The way that the forms are simplified adds to the iconic quality of the image. If I didn't know better, I'd think it was by Léger. There's something about that flattened space that links these guys together. It reminds me that art doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's a conversation.