Visual analysis of two artworks from the Metropolitan Museum after 1350

Visual Analysis of Two of Works of Art and Design From Metropolitan Museum

Willem de Kooning's "Woman" is an oil and charcoal rendering of an anonymous woman on canvas, composed in 1944. It is a flat-looking depiction of a female nude against a background that looks like a home. The woman has large, circular breasts and protruding, round eyes. The woman's breasts and eyes are the image's most notable features, along with its color scheme. The colors, rather than attempting to realistically depict the female skin, jump out at the viewer with their garish hues. They are extremely bright and contribute to the flat texture of the picture. The primary colors are not human-like even in their likely associations in the viewer's mind, the only thing that conveys the humanity of the woman is the warmer color palate of her body in contrast to that of the cooler colors of the room's background.

The position of the woman seems contorted and almost painful, despite her broad, smiling lips. Her right arm is tucked beneath her left arm, and her legs are bent in a non-symmetrical fashion that takes the viewer aback, as it is initially difficult to determine whether the jutting bent orange shapes are legs at all. The legs are sharply angular and serve to emphasize the spherical nature of her breasts. Her breasts are perhaps the most prominent aspect of the work. The lines of "Woman" are almost cartoon-like in their flatness, except for the swirls of the woman's breasts, although the use of oil does not give a hard-edged texture to the work and there is blending between colors rather than a razor-sharp contrast of lines. The lighting of the work is clearly artificial, as the only brightness comes from the glow of the swirls that depict the woman's yellow face.

The space seems cramped, given her position, although there is no distinctive sense of location to the picture, other than the fact that it is indoors. The painting is classified as abstract expressionist in its color scheme, and its use of a mask-like face, which is reminiscent of some of Picasso's cubist works. Although this work is recognizably human, it seems like a grotesque rendering of the human form. The work seems more like smears or swirls on a canvas rather than a suggestion of someone one might know in life. The smile on the woman's face while she assumes an uncomfortable position, and the cartoon-like yellow, orange, green, and blues make it seem as if the work is a parody of a woman, as if the woman's image is being made intentionally ugly or distorted. Even if this was not de Kooning's intent, the artist's emphasis is on the arrangement of form, line, and color not the character of the woman herself. The woman exists as a subject, a series of surfaces, rather than a unique personality.

Willem de Kooning was born in the Netherlands, although he is classified as an American abstract expressionist. The artist John Graham was born in the Ukraine, and is also classified as an American artist -- but this naturalized American's 1944 rendition of a human form is quite different than de Kooning's work. Merely the fact Graham titles his work "Celia" rather than simply "Woman" is telling. It conveys an identity to the subject of the work. Graham's work is a far softer looking painting, as it is painted in oil, with casein, charcoal, chalk, pencil, pen and ink on Masonite rather than pure, flat oil on canvas. It showcases "Celia," a woman with a classically hourglass figure and long, soft hair against a black background more reminiscent of a 19th century or classical nude than a modernist depiction of a woman, even though the painting was created at the same time as "Woman." Celia is not nude; rather she wears a thin and gauzy dress that emphasizes her shape.

The Graham woman's skin is a realistic peach shade, with varying shades of pink and darker shadings around the eyes, although her perfectly styled hair is somewhat cloud-like in shape, without a differentiation of texture. The flat, black background assures that the viewer's focus is on the woman alone and nothing else. But black is a cool tone, and the cool compliments the cool pinks of the woman's skin, dark hair, and white dress, unlike the contrasts between primary warm and cool colors in "Woman" that created a clash or lack of harmony between the colors used, and the shapes of the figure in the foreground and the room in the background. "Celia" is a work of balance and symmetry, down to Celia's figure.

The colors of the woman's skin and her nearly transparent bodice, her realistically non-pneumatic breasts, show a sympathetic, warm attitude to "Celia" on the part of the artist, as if the artist sees the woman as something that is not merely a subject of art. This shines through even though her posture seems somewhat unnatural and contrived. The picture shows Celia as clearly poised, as she leans against something in a rather stiff manner and gazes directly at the viewer with a gentle, calm gaze.