Ballet mécanique 1926

Fernand Léger made 'Ballet mécanique' with oil on canvas. Can you imagine him in the studio, turning circles into semi-circles, and back again? Léger's got this awesome palette going on – a muted, but confident, pastel green, pink, and blue. It’s architectural, like he's designing a building in paint, with those bold, blocky shapes kind of floating in space, or maybe they're dancing? The title, 'Ballet mécanique', hints at the rhythms and movements, so maybe he's trying to catch the speed and energy of modern life, with the geometry and clean lines echoing the machine age. Léger was looking at Picasso and Braque’s Cubism at the time, and you can see the influence of taking things apart and putting them back together. It's painting, but it’s also like he’s building something. Painters are always chatting to each other through time, borrowing and riffing off each other's ideas. It’s a constant, beautiful conversation.