Leger’s the City, Research Paper Example

Leger’s The City is made up of black, white and gray shapes and silhouettes. The shapes are acute and fixed. The shapes also resemble machine parts. Leger’s Contrast of Forms is lightly colored, using white; faded red, orange and navy blue; and yellow. The shapes in this painting are three-dimensional, and the work is made up of cylinders, cubes and triangles.

The City was a very modern painting, from the composition itself to the urban atmosphere. During this time period, machine imagery was popular and intriguing, drawing society to art that included these elements. While I personally feel that the shapes in Contrast of Forms resemble instruments, they’re actually meant to resemble machine parts. Leger combines manufacturing with cubism and exhibits architectural art that looks like it could be functional in real life.

While both paintings don’t utilize the same colors, they do employ elements of cubism and machinery. Contrast of Forms is slightly more fluid than The City due to circular shapes, but The City evokes more emotion since it includes an actual setting. Both works seems to highlight urbanization.

Works Cited

Balla, Giacomo. Street Light. Modern Art. By Hunter, Sam, John Jacobus, and Daniel Wheeler. New York: 2000. 152-153.

Leger, Fernand. Contrast of Forms. Modern Art. By Hunter, Sam, John Jacobus, and Daniel Wheeler. New York: 2000. 150.

Picasso, Pablo. Portrait of Ambrose Vollard. Modern Art. By Hunter, Sam, John Jacobus, and Daniel Wheeler. New York: 2000. 141.

Seurat, Georges. Woman Fishing. Modern Art. By Hunter, Sam, John Jacobus and Daniel Wheeler. New York: 2000. 25.