Le vase noir 1947

Fernand Léger made *Le vase noir* with oil on canvas, and I'm immediately struck by the solid blacks and primary colors. I can almost feel Léger standing in front of the canvas, brush in hand, trying to work out how the volumes fit together, wiping the brush, stepping back. It’s not just about the objects, but also the way he's seeing. There's this dialogue happening, between the vase, the figure, and the painter. Was he thinking about the way we see things flattened into shapes and lines? The black lines are so decisive! There's a great back-and-forth between Léger and other painters of his time, a conversation about how to see and represent the world around us, like in Cubism. The still life with the black vase isn't just a picture of stuff. It’s like a diagram of looking, a painting about painting.