Art by
Lee Bontecou
Source:
New York Art Blog
This artwork is made up of mostly curvilinear shapes, fashioned to resemble 3-dimensional objects or parts of a machine arranged as part of a structure. Aside from the curvilinear shapes, we can also see the more geometric rectangular shapes serving as the connectors of the curvilinear shapes, tying the whole composition of the art together and making it one piece of artwork. However, even though the rectangular, geometric shapes connect all the other shapes together, their controlled nature gives a stark contrast to the flowing lines that are present in the curvilinear shapes. This gives me the feeling that the geometric structures are preventing the curvilinear 'machine parts' from freely functioning like they are supposed to, creating a distortion in the way the piece harmonized on a canvas.
The clashing complementary colors present in the background and foreground of this painting harmonize with one another to emphasize on the figure of a man smoking a cigarette. The hues present in this painting that are the most noticeable are green, red, blue, and orange, with contrast in the saturation of the blue shirt the man is wearing the most apparent along with the darkness of the blue hue. The dark, saturated blue on the man's figure draws our attention to the contrast provided by the warm, bright, and cheerful warmer colors in the negative space (background) of the painting, and seemingly gives out a gloomy vibe from the man because they make the sad, gloomy blue stand out on its own even more. Even though it feels like the brighter colors are representative of all the good things that the world may have to offer to the man, the dark blue that he wears seems like a projection of his less than cheery mood, signifying his battle and inner struggle against the world. I think it also helps that the man is looking down as he smokes in this composition as the action highlights the heavy feelings that he may feel at that moment.
