Typically, vertical lines as elements of art are used to convey a sense of height, and they rightfully do so in this painting.
The tall buildings of New York City and the upright figures of the people crowding the street take up a larger part of the canvas, and depict the usual flow of the city life with a correspondent emphasis on its constant expansion and growth. George Bellows, 1911, New YorkĪt the first glance, the painting seems to be overloaded by vertical lines. The emphasis on the woman’s left breast in the painting possibly means that the love coming out from a woman’s heart is what makes this world a safe harbor even in the times of turmoil. Therefore, I believe that the artist was attempting to convey that women had been fighting not one, but many wars: being oppressed in their rights, attempting to win gender equality, and sending their sons, fathers, brothers, and husbands to the battlefields. Yet, the 1950s marked five years after World War II ended, and although the world had practically recovered from the war, it still bore a heavy burden of guilt, rivalry, and instability. By the 1950s, the women’s suffrage movement had far come to an end, as women were given the right to vote around three decades before that. The image of the woman in this painting seems to be shattered and overall distorted, which supposedly implies that the context of it is disturbing. The central theme of Willem de Kooning’s Woman III is a woman. Whereas the rest of the woman’s body is primarily painted in a dull and cool palette, the yellow color of the woman’s left breast comes in a stark contrast with the general painting’s color scheme and provokes heightened emotions.
Due to the high intensity and value of the yellow used to paint the woman’s left breast, it draws the viewer’s eyes to it.
The same mission is also fulfilled by the use of color observed in this painting. This is what defines the primary aim of the artist: to make the woman depicted there the central figure and place the emphasis on her, oversimplifying the background and making it irrelevant. Therefore, the figure of a woman appears to be instantly grasping one’s attention, and the focus is drawn to the upper half of the woman’s body. The disproportionate amount of the positive space against the negative space is prominent in this painting. The positive space takes up the major and central part of the painting, particularly pushing the negative space aside in the upper half of the canvas. When taking the first look at this painting, it is impossible not to notice a vast discrepancy between the positive and the negative space of it.
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