Léger's The Card Players

During his recovery, he painted The Card Players, as seen in Figure 2, in 1917. Léger continues to use tubism, primary colors, and mechanical forms, but his style has become more developed. The colors are slightly duller and, in general, there is less color in this work. Before, his paint was brighter in tone, but now the colors are getting cloudier. All that remains of any bright color is the few touches of red seen on the soldiers, presumably part of their uniform, and the yellow, which represents the table that they are playing at. The rest of the painting is filled with blue-greys, which embody the soldiers and their coats and helmets. The forms are more defined and mechanized, but there is more volume in each figure than there was in …show more content…
The City, as seen in Figure 3, was painted in 1919 and is a great example of how the war had changed his style. This painting demonstrates his movement away from figuration in favor of utilizing nonfigurative shapes to symbolize an urban landscape. A major difference that can be seen is shift from using primary colors to multiple colors, including some shades of green and orange. Léger purposely uses the strong primary colors that were seen in modern advertising and posters, rather than the more subtle tones found in the typical Cubist palette. The many colors in this painting collide as the volumes and flat shapes diminish and seem to move forward in space. It intersects into a collage that seeks to make the city beautiful after the chaos and destruction from the war. The sense of action or movement in this painting is depicting how the city is moving forward after the war. Léger also tries to create that dynamic tendency he wants all his works to have by moving back and forth between depicting human figures and technological forms. It can be noted that none of the forms in the painting are fully shown. The halves that are shown seem to be mirroring what the city looks like in reality. Small pieces of billboards, store windows and buildings are overlapping each other and this gives off a sense of excitement and some chaos. Importantly, Léger uses this painting of the city as a way to represent the colorful world of modern technology, which we know he is very fond of. He did not find them overwhelming like other artists during this period. Instead, he saw in them the ability to cure the negative effects of the war left behind in the post war world. Léger wanted to portray the positivity of the machine age and show its beauty, contrasting other movements such as the Futurists, who through their work showed us the cons