Les cylindres colorés 1918

Fernand Léger made this painting with oil on canvas, and what strikes me is how he builds the composition with these blocky, bold forms. You can really see how he’s thinking about shapes as individual components, almost like stacking building blocks. Looking closely, the paint feels deliberate, not overly worked, but carefully placed to define the edges and give weight to each cylinder. The color palette - those primaries, yellow and red, paired with purples and greens - feels really modern, almost like the pop art that would come later. I love the way he uses white to create highlights and depth, giving the cylinders a sense of volume. And there, see that little yellow circle nestled among the cylinders? It’s like a tiny sun, pulling the whole composition together. Léger’s work always reminds me of the Russian Constructivists, like El Lissitzky, who were also playing with geometry and abstraction, but with a distinctly modern, machine-age twist. It’s a conversation between artists across time, each adding their own voice to the mix.