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. 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. The disproportionate amount of the positive space against the negative space is prominent in this painting. 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. 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. The same mission is also fulfilled by the use of color observed in this painting. 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. 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.
The central theme of Willem de Kooning’s Woman III is a woman. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
George Bellows, 1911, New York
At the first glance, the painting seems to be overloaded by vertical lines. 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. Typically, vertical lines as elements of art are used to convey a sense of height, and they rightfully do so in this painting. Looking at this painting makes one to get overwhelmed with the urban scene depicted on it. The relative dominance of vertical lines over horizontal in this painting emphasizes on the rapidly growing and quickly advancing city, and the fast-paced rhythm of the city life which one risks to miss out on the instant they turn away from the canvas. The light yellow color used to paint a horse-drawn cart catches one’s attention because the pure and bright yellow comes in contrast with the gloomy buildings and the dark clothes that the majority of the depicted people are wearing. Therefore, lines create the mood of the painting and color places the emphasis on the central figure.
Drawing attention to the horse-drawn cart with wooden wheels loaded with either building bricks or hay is possibly supposed to emphasize on the extinction of the rural-life values the big city provokes. The tall city buildings made of concrete seem to be aggressively turning the city residents into robots who dress in the same fashion, walk in the same pace, and forget about the little things that matter. The early 1900s New York is depicted as the fuming and heavily industrialized city, and it really was so. A man sitting on that horse-drawn cart seems to be partially in the shade, as the urban scenery has no room for any rural remnants.
Charles Sheeler, 1930, American Landscape
Horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines are all present in this painting, which points at the conveyed contradiction between the feeling of rest and the feeling of movement. From one hand, the industrial setting depicted in this painting seems to be steady and stable, thus, communicating the feeling of rest. From the other hand, the railroad tracks and the canal are painted in diagonal lines, which is logical as the depicted objects are usually observed in movement in real life. Also, the verticality of the factory chimney points at the industrial development and advancement. The texture of the painting seems to be very smooth and, therefore, emotionally passive. Taking into consideration a perceived contradiction between the types of lines used in this painting and the smooth texture of it, it is clear that emotional passivity is dominant.
The painting depicts an industrial setting, which is not what first comes to mind when one thinks of an “American landscape”. Most likely, the artist attempted to point out how the traditional rural American landscape had been replaced by industrial settings in the first half of the twentieth century. The 1930s were marked by the Great Depression, and still the industry depicted on the canvas looks steady and stable. Therefore, the artist tried to paint a new era of the American life.
Alexandre Hogue, 1936, Erosion No. 2 – Mother Earth Laid Bare
The three-dimensional space skillfully depicted in a two-dimensional painting is the first thing that one sees when looking at this Alexandre Hogue’s art work. The shading and perspective drawing techniques used there manage to create that three-dimensional image of land, which also appears to be the central and primary part of the painting. The curves of lines with which the silhouette of a woman’s bare body is outlined, according to the typical art elements studies, are supposed to convey sensual quality and have a softening effect on the composition. However, in this case, they are rather used as an attempt to convey the vulnerability and the “terrible”, “tragic” beauty of land. As such, the three-dimensional space and the curves of lines engage the viewer into the painting and inspire them to examine the canvas from distance at the same time.
Mother Earth appears to be stripped of her lavishing, fertile soil. I believe that the artist attempted to convey the reality observed in the first half of the 1900s, when the rapid industrialization began taking over the nature. The composition of the painting is such that the machine in the front of the painting comes before a rural landscape appears. Thus, the main idea of this art work is the threat under which rapid industrialization puts nature.
