Portrait of Rimbaud 1949

Fernand Léger made this Portrait of Rimbaud with ink and watercolor on paper. Léger simplifies form, reducing it to its essentials, while the interplay of line and color creates depth. It’s a process, a back and forth. The fluid ink lines define the contours of the face and hair, while transparent washes of color fill the spaces. Look at the red pigment between the nose and eye, the blue and red to the left of the nose. The colors are like an emotional weather report, aren’t they? The colors are built up, applied wetly, and allowed to run together. The green hair is a wonderful detail. Notice too the signature lower right, ‘F.L.’. Léger's reduction of form, along with the use of bold outlines and flat planes of color, recalls the work of artists like Matisse and Derain. Yet, Léger’s emphasis on line lends the work a graphic quality all his own. The portrait embraces ambiguity, inviting us to consider the many layers of meaning and interpretation inherent in both portraiture and abstraction.