Title: A Tree in Naples, 1960 Poster size: 50 * 70cm

Age: 1960 Media: Oil on canvas Size: 203.7 × 178.1 cm, now in MoMA.

Although it is entitled "A Tree", it is not a landscape painting, but compresses Naples' air, sea, city light, tree shadows and body feelings into a vigorous brushstroke. The large area of blue in the picture resembles the sea and sky, as well as the walls washed by sunlight in memory; the dark reddish-brown color above brings out the heat of the land, roof, or Nanyi.

The beauty of it is that you don't have to “see what it paints”, but you can feel the painter bumping, dragging, and scratching on the canvas with a brush. That sense of speed makes it look like a wind just happened.

Poster / Glossy Paper

Willem de Kooning (1904–1997) was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and later moved to the United States. He was one of the most important Abstract Expressionist artists of the 20th century and a central figure in the New York School. Both Tate and Britannica classify him as a Dutch-American Abstract Expressionist painter; Britannica also identifies him as an important exponent of Action Painting.

A well-known aspect of his work is that he does not completely separate the “abstract” from the “figurative.” He painted figures early in his career and later moved into abstraction, but traces of bodies, landscapes, women, cities, and light often remain in his images. In other words, rather than simply painting geometric shapes, he breaks the real world apart and reassembles it in an intense, emotional way.

De Kooning’s brushwork often has a palpable physicality, and his paintings seem to be constantly changing. This is part of their appeal: they do not hang quietly on the wall but seem still to be breathing, struggling, and moving.