Pop Art Essay, Research Paper
West Hills Community College
POP ART
Art Appreciation 52
CONTENTS
I. POP ART 4
II. ANDY WARHOL 5
III. DAVID HOCKNEY 7
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Illustration 1 :Roy Lichtenstrin, Whamm!, Cover
2. Illustration 2 :Andy Warhol, Cambell Soup Can 6
3. Illustration 3 David Hockney, A Bigger Splash 7
POP ART
Art in which everyday objects and subjects are depicted with the
flat naturalism of advertising or comic strips. 1.
Pop Art, visual arts movement of the 1950s and 1960s,
principally in the United States and Great Britain. The images of
pop art (shortened from popular art ) were taken from mass
culture. The term Pop Art was first by the critic Lawrence
Alloway to describe those paintings that celebrate post-war
consumerism, defy the psychology of Abstract Expressionism, and
worship the god of materialism.2 This was an art which had
natural appeal to American artists, living in the midst of the most
blatant and pervasive industrial and commercial environment. For
the American artist, once they realized the tremendous
possibilities of their everyday environment in the creation of new
subject matter, the result was generally more bold, aggressive,
even overpowering, than in the case of their European
counterparts. Some artists duplicated beer bottles, soup cans,
comic strips, road signs, and similar objects in paintings, collages,
and sculptures. Others incorporated the objects themselves into
their paintings or sculptures, sometimes in startlingly modified
form. Materials of modern technology, such as plastic, urethane
foam, and acrylic paint, often figured prominently. As opposed to
the junk sculptors, the assemblage artists who have created their
works from rubbish, the garbage, the refuge of modern industrial
society, the pop artists deal principally with the new, the
“store-bought,” the idealized vulgarity of advertising, of the
supermarket, and of television commercials. One of the most
important artistic movements of the 20th century, pop art not only
influenced the work of subsequent artists but also had an impact
on commercial, graphic, and fashion design.3
American Pop art was first of all a major reaction against
abstract expressionism which had dominated painting in the United
States during the later 1940s and 1950s. During the later 1950s
there were many indications that American painting would return to
a new kind of figuration, a new humanism. Pop art brought art back
to the material realities of everyday life, to popular culture in which
ordinary people derived most of their visual pleasure from
television, magazines, or comics.
The paintings of Lichtenstein, and Warhol, share not only
an attachment to the everyday, commonplace, or vulgar image of
the modern industrial America, but also the treatment of this image
in an impersonal, neutral manner. They do not comment on the
scene or attack it like social realist, nor do they exalt it like the ad
men. They seem to be saying simply that this is the world we live
in, this is the urban landscape, these are the symbols, the
interiors, the still lifes that make up our own lives.
Andy Warhol, (1928-1987)
One of the greatest Pop Artist or more well known as a
direct representation of pop culture is Andy Warhol. He was born
in 1928 and grew up during the depression and all the political
shenanigans it had to offer during his life time(WW2, Watergate,
Marilyn Monroe, etc.). Unfortunately his life ended in 1987, and
no longer can he offer a fundamental yet understandable view on
every day life. He choose objects from daily American life as well
the faces of entertainers and of others with household names as
subjects for his pop art work. It made no difference if his subject
was of a object or personality, they were an inherent part of
postwar American culture Warhol s work advertised familiar
aspects of post war America, yet according to him it did not intend
to hold any hidden meaning, nor was it intended to criticize; the
work of Andy Warhol was meant to simply express, in an
unpersonal manner, how he perceived the world around him.
His technique used to create his images was silk
screening(a mechanical process that allows images to be
repeatedly endlessly). This machine-like element of the
silk-screen technique depicted appropriately the industrialized
postwar American culture which he had witnessed. Warhol had
<expressed it as a culture overburdened by disturbance that
seemed to be repeated and recreated. Warhol had choose
popular figures as subjects for an almost mass production of
images, in a sense, dedicating his work his work to the world
around him whose identity is comprised not only if these figures,
but of technological advancements as well. In spite of his claim
that he is completely detached from his work and that he and his
work are wholly on the surface, he did create some pieces which
seem to hold some type of deeper social commentary. For
example, He manipulated his original silk-screen technique to
create reverse images, to point more closely to the element of
disturbance in postwar American culture. Essentially they
illustrated what he perceived as the dark side of fame. Similarly
he seemed to comment on the intrusive nature of pop-culture
icons(i.e. Marilyn Monroe) in pieces such as Gold Marilyn, 1962.
Eventually, Warhol began to create self-portraits using both
his original silk-screening technique as well as his reverse
technique. this was an interesting choice of subject, and he may
have decided to create this series of self-portraits because he was
realizing his own role in pop culture. as an important pop artist,
Warhol himself became a representation of pop culture, and
therefore an appropriate subject for his own work, Like the other
troubled personalities depicted in his various series of reversals,
Warhol too encountered the hard ships of popularity. His
reversals of himself revealed the dark, troubled aspects of his
career as a popular artist.4,5
David Hockney, (1937- )
English painter, draftsman, photographer, and set designer,
known for his satirical paintings, his masterly prints and drawings,
and his penetrating portraits of contemporary personalities.
Technically, it is true to say that the Pop movement started with
Richard Hamilton and David Hockney in England. Hockney’s early
work made superb use of the popular magazine-style images on
which much of Pop Art is based. However, when Hockney moved to
California in the 1960s, he responded with such artistic depth to the
sea, sun, sky, young men, and luxury that his art took on a wholly
new, increasingly naturalistic dimension. His amazing success has
been based not only on the flair, wit, and versatility of his work, but
also on his colorful personality, which has made him a recognizable
figure even to people not particularly interested in art: His works
from the 1960s such as his series featuring Los Angeles swimming
pools and their denizens are painted in a bright and deliberately
naive style, and their subject matter is drawn from popular culture.
He has spent much of his time in the USA, and the Californian
swimming pool has been one of his favorite themes. A Bigger
Splash (1967, Tate Gallery, London) is one of his best-known
paintings. It is simplistic rather than a simplified view of the world, it
nevertheless creates a delightful interplay between the impassive
pink verticals of a Los Angeles setting and the overflow of spray as
the unseen diver enters the pool. There is no visible human
presence here, just that lonely, empty chair and a bare, almost
frozen world. Yet that wild white splash can only come from another
human, and a great deal of Hockney’s psyche is involved in the mix
of lucidity and confusion of this picture.6 Hockney’s wryness and wit
together with his talent for strong composition and design led him, at
the end of the 1960s, to a more naturalistic manner, particularly in
his portraits. His early paintings, often almost jokey in mood, gained
him a reputation of leading Pop artist, although he himself rejected
the label. In the late 1960s he turned to a weightier, more
traditionally representational manner, in which he has painted some
striking portraits (Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy, Tate, London,
1970-01). Although not fully realistic, these works painted in his
preferred style of flat acrylic paints and profuse finely drawn
lines provide sensitive, often heightened, representations of their
sitters. Hockney’s notable designs for operatic productions, for both
the Glyndebourne Opera in England and for New York City’s
Metropolitan Opera, have met with critical and popular favor. David
Hockney photographs (1982) is an exploration of the medium and a
partial record of his life. Composite Polaroid pictures, called joiners,
such as Henry Moore (1982), are another example of Hockney’s
photographic work.7