The album "Circus" 1950

Fernand Léger made this print, titled "Circus", sometime during his career. You can see his signature style here, a dance between flatness and form. The piece feels like a construction. There are these bold lines sectioning off shapes, giving everything a solid, almost mechanical feel. But look closer, and you notice how the colours don't quite fill those lines, leaving gaps, like it’s still in progress. That blue blob on the right – is it a cloak, a shadow, or just a patch of pure colour? Léger isn't telling, and I love that ambiguity. It’s like he’s saying, “Here are the parts, now you put it together.” The overall effect is a celebration of the raw materials of art, and of life, with all its imperfect edges and open questions. Léger reminds me a bit of Stuart Davis, another artist who loved to play with the architecture of the canvas.