The great tug 1923

Fernand Léger made this painting, called The Great Tug, on canvas with oils, but when I look at it I see scaffolding, like a construction site of shapes, and the colour palette feels mechanical.  There's this orange form that looks like it has been cut from a template, so precise, so considered. Imagine Léger building up these forms, each layer informing the next, pushing and pulling to create an abstract cityscape. And, what about that red line? It's so playful, it seems to flow through the painting like a river, or perhaps it's tugging at the whole scene? Léger, like other artists, such as Piet Mondrian, was part of a wider conversation about the nature of abstraction, but his style is very different, he embraces geometry, and the beauty of industry and the machine age. Each painting is a place of discovery where the journey is more important than arriving at a fixed destination.