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Each quadrant contains different shapes, forms, and combinations of color but all four quadrants interact harmoniously.
The balanced composition of "Woman 1" offers counterpoint to what would otherwise seem simply like chaotic brushstrokes and jagged lines. While de Kooning paints the woman's hooves with relative clarity, her hands are blurred. They blend in seamlessly with the remainder of the canvas, again suggesting that she is in motion. The blurred hands are also unsettling, symbolizing the unearthly and even unnatural or supernatural female image.
However, the woman's ample bosom forms the main foreground of "Woman 1." The large bosom represents an earth mother. The largest solid blocks of color on the canvas, the breasts are mostly white. The bright white adds shadow and creates a sense of depth in the composition. White also symbolizes breast milk. Moreover, the white in the breasts balances the...
The woman's teeth, which are bared in a grin, are also black and white as are her large eyes.
The woman's hair and her irises provide the most solid areas of black paint on the canvas, another way de Kooning creates balance in the composition. Furthermore, de Kooning places the woman's head, eyes, and hair in the upper-left region of the canvas. They balance the weight of her left hoof, which extends into the opposite, lower-right region of the canvas. The woman's lap contains shades of yellow and orange, and those colors are reflected at the top of the canvas. Below her hooves, the floor upon which the woman sits appears blue. The blue balances the orange and yellow, just like the black balances the white. With "Woman 1," de Kooning presents a fascinating, energetic, and entertaining vision of the female form.
Art History The 'Self' Concept in Abstract Expressionism Movement Throughout many years, movements concerning approaches on different works of art often reflect principles that appeal to the utility and social function of artworks, which is the primary characteristic of Socialist art movement. Moreover, Cubism as an art movement subsists to creating ambiguous sense of space and use of geometric shapes to flatten the objects and subjects of the painting. Figures, objects, and
In essence, this painting "mixes a toothpaste smile with the grimace of a death's head" and symbolizes the true work of an American "action" painter (de la Croix & Tansey, 774). Another great example of an American abstract expressionist master is Mark Rothko (1903 to 1973), who emigrated to the United States in 1914 from Latvia with his family to escape Czarist Russia and its strict policies towards Jews. Although
Bauhaus After World War I, the nation state of Germany under the direction of architect Walter Gropius created a "consulting art center for industry and the trades" (Bayer 12). Called Bauhaus, "house for building," the school combined the role of artisans and craftspeople and included everything from architecture to theater to typography. When the school was forced to close during the Nazi regime in 1932, many of its artists moved to
My letters to my brother Theo often touch upon this theme." Q: What was your relationship like in Arles? Gaugin: "I would say that Vincent definitely needed me more than I needed him. Vincent was always looking for a friend, you know -- a kindred spirit. His brother Theo was sympathetic but separate from him. In me he found someone who shared his passion for art and who understood what he
Abstract Expressionist Painting Artistic and Aesthetic Value in American Modernist Art during the Cold War Era Defining American Expressionism American modernism is perhaps one of the most difficult artistic periods to define. Modernism refers to a trend that affirms the power of human beings to create, shape, and make improvements to their environment. Modernism is aided by technological advances and is considered both progressive and optimistic in its approach to defining society. American
While that process may be somewhat apparent in Kurt Schwitters's Merz pictures from this era, the artist was not so radical as to defy all means of self-expression - he clearly could not help himself from interfering by shaping his materials into a form that may not have seemed coherent at the time, but from a historical perspective, certainly seems to make sense. Both works seem to evoke a