Two Women Holding Flowers

The painting Two Women Holding flowers is a 1954 French painting by Fernand Leger. Just as the name suggests, the painting features two nude female forms as the main characters. The two females are both firmly gazing at the viewer while displaying a different posture each.

From the painting, you can notice that one woman is seated while the other one appears reclined. The two ladies have their bodies intertwined together. This leaves the audience buffered when trying to understand where their bodies start and end. The use of two models is a brilliant idea as it makes the painting symmetrical and attractive. As a result, this also allows him to paint one of the ladies holding a flower, thus implying that ladies are fertile yet tender creatures. The painting is a combination of primary and secondary colors that enhance the outlines of the two females. For instance, the two characters are done with thick black paint that outlines parts of their bodies like their face, breasts, limbs, and even their hair. Their flesh, on the other hand, has touches of grey paint. In turn, the painting both texture and composition.

Further, the painting has a white background with a yellow window on the right-hand side of the painting. Aside from the window, the painting is also green orange and red patches of paint that makes the canvas eye-catching, yet attractive. Lastly, the painting has a sign and date at the bottom right corner. Theories suggest that Leger worked on the piece at the Gif-sur-Yvette studio, a workshop he’d moved into in 1952. The painting’s production involved applying paint in bold, decisive strokes. The painting is the successor of two smaller versions that varied in both colour arrangement and colour pattern.

As seen above, the painting sums up Leger as an artist who played an important role in the implementation, adoption, and evolution of the neo-classism style after the world war. Further, his taste for nude models displays him as an ambitious artist who understood the rhythmic pattern of the female body. As a result, the above portrays him as a heroic artist who achieved various milestones in an error where art was less appreciated.