The album "Circus" 1950

Fernand Léger made this print called "Circus" and it’s full of bodies in motion, balancing and reaching. I wonder about the journey Léger took to arrive at this composition. It’s like he started with a kernel of an idea and let it bloom, pushing and pulling at the forms until they took on a life of their own. I imagine him, charcoal in hand, circling figures and isolating bits of the crowd and the acrobat, turning the energy of the circus into a graphic ballet. Look at that figure in the center. Are they bursting into flames or flowers? Or both? It reminds me of the way Picabia would use machine-like forms to suggest human figures, or how Hannah Höch would collage bodies to make something new. Artists are always in conversation, borrowing and riffing off each other. And ultimately, Léger isn’t just showing us the circus, he’s inviting us to see the world anew.