In this
transformation of the «intimate proportions» of the woman's
body into landscape - like abstract
composition, de Kooning pursued a strategy similar to that of his friend Franz Kline, who used an opaque projector to enlarge details of his own urban genre paintings into the mural - scale, black - and - white abstractions that became his signature achievement» (J. Zilczer, A Way of Living: The Art of Willem de Kooning, New York, 2014, p. 132).