De Kooning and Rosenberg Both Willem de Kooning and Harold Rosenberg are well known in the art and specifically in the art called abstract expressionism. This art movement developed in America between the 1940s and 1950s. The kind of art the artists in this movement did put America on the international stage and dimmed the light for Paris, which had been the center of art in the world. The artists included those who “filled their canvases with fields of color and abstract forms, but also those who attacked their canvases with vigorous gestural expressionism” (Wolf 1). The paper will focus on Rosenberg and de Kooning’s key terms and concepts of their approaches in viewing and making the art. In addition, explain whether they approach art in the same way or different ways as well. De Kooning’s key terms and concepts of approach in viewing and making the art De Kooning was prominent and the most celebrated abstract expressionist artist. His works characterize “the vigorous gestural style of the movement” (Willem de Kooning 1). His paintings combined the style of surrealism, expressionism and cubism. He was biased in painting traditional subjects although he also did abstract pictures that increased his reputation. His most famous work was the paintings of women. After these paintings, he did pictures of landscapes that were highly acclaimed. He felt that categorizing art into movements restricted it and thus he aimed not to be confined by those restrictions. This is the reason why he continued to paint human subjects. His pictures of women show his blending of figuration and gestural abstraction, which was due to the influence of cubism. De Kooning’s pictures of women were always in progress because he would dismember and reassemble thus distorting the figures. He always reworked his canvases and his works had the impression of dynamic incompletion. The paintings seemed to be always in a movement towards a definition. He reinforces Rosenberg’s idea of action painting because his works were like records of an ongoing encounter instead of finished works. His paintings “flattened the pictorial space …. And simplified the color” (Willem de Kooning 1). The figure could be identified in his works although in Pink Angels the figure was difficult to separate from the background as it was dispersed on the canvas. Thus, he developed a unique style of painting that had a complex relationship between the ground and the figure. His works of the women series bring out this characteristic very well. De Kooning’s approach in making art was different from the norm because he kept on working on a picture until he felt he was satisfied with the result. In an article titled ”Willem de Kooning paints a picture” by Thomas Hess he attempted to study how de Kooning painted his pictures and said” the picture’s creation as a voyage that involved hundreds of revisions and was only completed minutes before the work was loaded onto the truck to go to the gallery” (Willem de Kooning 1). This painter suppressed the narrative and figure of the picture. Commenting on this reintroduction of the figure the art critic Clement Greenberg felt this was a wrong direction thus a backward step. In retaliation, de Kooning asked what the problem was with his paintings as according to him painting was ab