Willem De Kooning Woman V Essay

Woman V was created using oil and charcoal on canvas by Willem De Kooning in 1952-1953, during the period of Abstract Expressionism. Abstract Expressionism was a period developed during the 1940s and 1950s where the goal was to create abstract art that was emotional and very expressive. This painting is considered abstract art and was influenced by the period through the use of very expressive charcoal and brush strokes. This painting is currently displayed at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra and is part of a series of six other paintings made by Willem de Kooning. The subject matter of this series, and this specific painting, are portraits of women. Woman V is a portrait that contains a woman smiling broadly with pronounced breasts

and her hands clutched together towards her waist. The painting is focused solely on the woman, with the woman taking up most of the space in the composition of the painting. Woman V displays a very vicious looking woman through the artist’s choice of line, color and proportion.
The use of very aggressively applied charcoal and paint strokes to create the lines in the painting help to depict a very vicious woman. The brush and charcoal strokes look very aggressively applied because there are so many variations of lines used in the painting and hardly any of the strokes are blended or polished. The setting in the painting doesn’t feel serene or inviting. Instead, the use of so many unique lines presents a feeling of chaos and dismay. There are also more lines surrounding the woman, than there are used to create her. Because the woman is seen in a chaotic surrounding and the lines used in her form aren’t organized or well blended, she seems to contribute to the unsettling chaos. By using various amounts of lines and various types of lines, there is a disturbance that hints the viewer that the woman in the painting is very vicious.
Another reason why the woman in the painting is depicted as vicious is because of De Kooning’s choice and use of colors.

Warm colors, hues of red to yellow, are mostly used in the center of the painting, while cooler colors, hues from blue green to blue violet, are used more in the exterior and ends of the painting. This choice of warm colors in the center brings more light and focus to the center of the artwork which contains the woman’s breasts, her huge arms and her broad smile. Because cooler colors are used on the exterior of the artwork, one does not rapidly notice or pay attention to where the woman is or what she is doing. This choice of placement and use of colors emphasizes the woman and brings attention to who or what the woman is, not what she is doing or where she is. Because the woman is composed mainly of the color red and shades of red, one will also typically associate her with the typical meaning or symbol of red. Red symbolizes fire and blood, and usually also has the connotation of love, lust, rage, war, danger, and strength. Since the woman is not compositionally polished or idealized, she is not seen as friendly, so one would tend to associated her with negative connotations of the color red. The woman evokes rage and danger to the mind. She intimidates the viewer and looks monstrous. The choice of where specific colors are placed and what colors are used brings foreword a very vicious woman as the subject matter in De Kooning’s

painting.
The last reason why the woman in De Kooning’s painting is depicted as vicious is because of his choice of proportion used to create the human form. In the painting, the woman’s biceps and shoulders are enlarged and even bigger than what a normal woman’s physical dimensions typically are. The woman in the painting has the physical dimensions of a man. Men are usually built with broader shoulders and more muscle to their biceps than women because of human genetics. When a woman has more muscle in her biceps than the average woman and she also has broad shoulders, she is seen as unfeminine and more masculine. Because she is seen as more masculine, she is then typically attributed with typical male characteristics. This includes men being aggressive and violent. Since the woman in the artwork is built with the physical proportions of a male, she is now also seen as being aggressive and violent. Society mainly depicts women who are petite and slim as harmless in society, not women who are more built with muscles like the woman in the painting. The choice of the proportion of the woman’s body by De Kooning in the painting attributes to the woman as being vicious because of her attributed characteristics to her chosen physical form.
This artwork is important because it shows how a person presents and creates a particular painting impacts the perception the viewer will have on the subject chosen. My personal reaction of the painting is that the woman is very intimidating and aggressive. The painting works so well because the way the woman was presented to the viewer isn’t how woman are typically idealized and portrayed in society. If the painting were to have been created with more polished lines, or with the average woman’s physical proportions, the woman might have been seen as more friendly or enticing. This way of presenting a woman brings originality and spontaneity. It evokes emotion out of the viewer. Through the use of various amounts and types of lines, the choice and placement of color, and the choice of physical proportions of the woman, Willem De Kooning illustrates a very vicious looking woman in Woman V.