Acrobats in gray 1944

Fernand Léger made ‘Acrobats in Gray’ with oil on canvas, and the layers he built up are just mesmerizing. The whole image shimmers between tones of ochre, gray, and black. I can just imagine Léger in his studio, coaxing these figures to life, maybe a bit like a dance or acrobatic act. You can see he's working and reworking the human form, abstracting and simplifying it. I feel like he really responded to the challenge of representing three-dimensionality on a flat surface. Look at the way he suggests light and shadow with those subtle gradations of gray. It gives the painting a sculptural quality, like these figures are emerging right out of the canvas. It reminds me of Picasso's Cubism and the way he broke down objects into geometric forms. Léger’s got his own thing going, though; he is so interested in the human figure and its relationship to machines. It's like he's asking: how do we stay human in this brave new world?