Fillette Allongée 1926

Georges Valmier made this oil on canvas, Fillette Allongée, sometime in the 1920s. I love the palette of greens, reds, and blues, like a landscape reconfigured, and the geometric forms, like architectural elements. It’s almost as if Valmier is building up the scene from simple shapes and blocks of color. I wonder what Valmier was thinking as he was making this piece. Was he thinking of Synthetic Cubism? Or Léger? The planes are stacked up like a collage and the painting feels really flat. I can imagine him adjusting each layer of colour and shape until it feels just right. The red and white stripe running through the middle is really striking. It anchors the composition, but also adds a playful element that feels very contemporary to me. It reminds me of what other artists were doing at the time. It’s as if they are all having a conversation with one another across time. It makes painting this image into a form of embodied expression, embracing ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations and meaning over fixed or definitive readings.