Essay about Willem de Kooning - 1526 Words

Willem de Kooning is considered one of the best American painters to ever live. He is compared to one of the Greek Sea Gods, Proteus, and is called a master of a liquid realm who is gifted with prophecy (Kertess).De Kooning is a highly intellectual, analytical artist with the courage to reject all assumptions and to take up an issue at its most difficult formation (Hess 16). One of de Kooning’s good friends was the poet, art critic, and MOMA Curator, Frank OHara. O’Hara considered de Kooning one of the three or four greatest painters of the twentieth century. He idolized de Kooning and was deeply influenced by de Kooning over their relationship. (Stevens 484) One of OHaras great poems about de Koonings work was Ode to Willem de†¦show more content†¦OHara used the lyricism, emotional effects, and metaphorical potentials of poetry to convey a paintings contents, a paintings appearance and and array of some of the paintings potential effects upon a viewer. OHaras writings about visual art are simultaneously art objects and art criticism. They are art objects themselves made of words responding to paintings. Because this activity--criticism as ekphrasis--rather than a formalized description advocated by Greenberg, OHara was able to draw on the strengths of both poetic and prosaic expression to write hybrid pieces of critical text. Again, OHaras art writings, unlike those of formalist critics like Greenberg, are a hybrid of aesthetic and critical modes of knowing (Shaw 179). Greenberg is wrong in his belief that ekphrastic poetry cannot fully capture the essence of a painting. Lytle Shaw and Charles Bernstein, two critics who supported ekphrastic poetry as a way to capture the essence of a painting, saw OHaras art writing as a powerful and necessary counter to the rigidity that descends from Clement Greenberg’s belief in formal art criticism (Bernstein). Bernstein adds that the significance of O’Hara is his ability to avoid simpl e descriptions of visual art in pursuit of the complexity found in the pieces they are addressing (Bernstein). Shaw and Bernstein both argue that OHaras poetry is a better way to capture visual art than aShow MoreRelatedEssay about Formal Analysis of Woman and Bicycle by Willem de Kooning818 Words   |  4 PagesFormal Analysis: Woman and Bicycle by Willem de Kooning Woman and Bicycle is an abstract expressionist painting created by Willem de Kooning in 1952-53 as part of his collection of Women paintings. It roughly measures 6ft. by 4ft. in size and is an oil painting on canvas. The image can be understood to be figurative, however the figure is difficult to decipher on account of the haphazard style in which it was created. 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