Pop Art: A Critical Analysis “Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art. ” (Warhol) Thus summarizes the unique and captivating art style: Pop Art. In a high commercialized world, Pop Art emerges as a contending force and took over the world of advertisement. The entrancing world of Pop Art has been a large part of our art culture since the 1950’s. In order to understand Pop Art, a close look must be taken towards the history, development, and characteristics of the style.
The foundation for the rise of Pop Art was laid by the growth of ass communication in the 1940’s. Visual images became a part of everyday life due to advertisements in television and print. Symbols became a huge part of society as industry and materialism were booming. In 1952, the Independent Group, a body of creators of art, architecture, and literature, met at the Institute of Contemporary Arts to discuss influence in the newly birthed society of mass communication. Little did they know, what they discussed had a profound effect on the birth of Pop Art.
In the mid 1950’s Richard Hamilton outlined a set of rules in a letter to a group of artists that later became the basis for Pop Art. The aspects talked about were “Popular, Transient, Expendable, Low Cost, Mass Produced, Young, Witty, Sexy, Gimmicky, Glamorous, and Big Business”. (Flynn) Thus laying down the definition for what would be considered Pop Art. However, Hamilton’s nationality did play a part in his position on Pop Art as British and American Pop Art did have slight differences, such as the British taking more of a spectators approach towards the American’s who were fully immersed in the materialism. Flynn) After this foundation for the “cultural revolution” was laid, Pop Art really took off, in both the United States and Great Britain. In the late 1950’s and 1960’s after the war, Americans moved to the suburbs, as well as into mass produced homes. Elis Presley and Marilyn Monroe became very iconic figure and the country seemed to be infatuated with them. (Pop Art: A Brief History) This sparked pop artists into using them as figures and icons in their works. These figures embodied the Pop Art characteristics of the style with glamour, capitalism, and youth.
Pop art was at its prime. However, in the early 1970’s, Pop Art’s popularity began to decline. This was mostly due to other, intangible art styles that came into the imelight. (Pop Art Movement, Artists and Major Works) Now that we have gathered the background information necessary to fully understand and appreciate Pop Art, we can evaluate the characteristics of it. Pop Art is very easily identifiable with unique traits. It typically depicts everyday objects in a fun and colorful manner.
In addition to objects, the typical subjects of the work also included popular icons of the time and logos for companies. Another inspiration and theme of Pop Art pieces is comic strips. Artists would take comic panels and morph them into Pop Art creations. Pop Art portrayed the opular culture of the time in an eye catching way. Contrary to other artists of the time, Pop Artists used very simple, easily reproducible techniques to create their work. (Ryan) This aided in the printing of more, identical works. One way they would do this is the use a technique called silk screen.
Silk screening lets the ink from one paper transfer to another, making it easy to make multiple copies. This lowered the cost of manufacturing and let the general population buy copies. The colors used are very vibrant, and complementary to each other on the color wheel. Another way to easily identify Pop Art would be if the rtist used multiple images of the same original painting, typically in different colors. (Ryan) Examples of this would be Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans and Marilyn Diptych. This uses the artistic element of repetition to add a sense of unity to the work.
By repeating the image over and over again, the artist leads the viewer’s eyes to the work, which fittingly is one of the key components to advertising. Although repetition brings a sense of unity, the typical use of multiple colors can make certain paintings of this style seem chaotic. Pop Art typically does not use much variety in its pieces, especially when looking owards subject matter. However, it can be seen it the use of many colors. Overall, Pop Art is a complicated style that embraces many characteristics and elements of art.
Since we now have a general understanding of Pop Art and its history and characteristics, we can now dive deeper into some of the key artists of the style. The first person who pops into your head when you hear, “Pop Art” is probably Andy Warhol. In 1928 Warhol was born to a working class family in Pittsburg. (Andy Warhol: American Draftsman, Filmmaker, Painter, and Printmaker) Warhol’s childhood was not perfect. He suffered rom a nervous disorder that would keep him at home for extended periods of time. Also, his father passed away.
Though this was a tragedy, his family decided to pool the money from the death to send Andy to college. He attended Carnegie Institute of Technology and received a degree in pictorial design. After graduating, he found work as a commercial illustrator. He ended up moving up in the world art and advertisement, eventually getting into exhibitions and display windows. In the mid 1950’s he took note on famous artists, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, and drew major inspiration from them.
In 1960, his work was finally able to be characterized as “Pop Art”. Andy Warhol: American Draftsman, Filmmaker, Painter, and Printmaker) After this, he moved into his mature period, where the majority of his iconic paintings came from. He continued with his theme of advertisement and commercialism. He began using very large scale canvases and would project an image onto in and either freehand painting it or tracing it. After this, he went onto silk-screening. This made the fabrication of prints very easy and effortless. After the making of the prints, he would typically paint them in different, vibrant, complimentary olors.
Also during this time, Warhol experimented with film and became very successful with it, creating about 600 pieces. In Warhol’s later life, he returned to painting and leaned towards abstraction with his Oxidation Painting Series. After living an incredibly successful life, Warhol passed away on February 22, 1987. (Andy Warhol: American Draftsman, Filmmaker, Painter, and Printmaker) Some of his most iconic creations include: Marilyn Diptych, Campbell’s Soup Cans, and Eight Elvises. These works are worldly known and show just how large his legacy really is.
OverallI, Warhol was one of the most famous artists in he twentieth century, who helped to pioneer a whole new style of art and immerse the world of advertisement in it. Another very famous artist from the Pop Art era is Roy Lichtenstein. Roy Lichtenstein was born in 1923 to a family in New York City. He showed an interest in art at a young age and began to take watercolor painting classes at Parsons School of Design during high school. After high school, he took even more art classes and became entranced and inspired by the works of Picasso and Braque.
However, after being drafted into the army, he began drafting and scaling up army newspaper comics. This ould prove key for his later art. After returning to normal life, Lichtenstein finished his education and received a degree in fine arts, only to become an art instructior. It was during this time where he became motivated by Abstract Expressionism and Surrealism, which can be clearly seen in his works. One example of this would be the movement `of action and movement in Abstract Expressionism playing into Lichtenstein’s comics. Using the inspiration gathered and information learned from his earlier life, he moved into his mature period.
In 1961, Lichtenstein created his first cartoon work using Ben-Day dots ntitled, “Look Mickey”. (Roy Lichtenstein: American Artist and Sculptor) Ben-Day dots are widely used in comic books and are tiny, close together, brightly colored dots, and make for a very captivating effect. He ended up using these dots a lot by taking a comic panel and tracing it onto a canvas to fill it with them and make it his own. After a short time, he finally earned his own place in exhibits and galleries to display his work. He also began to mass produce his work, one of the defining characteristics of Pop Art. Roy Lichtenstein: American Artist and Sculptor)
To many peoples dismay, he died in 1997. Roy Lichtenstein leaves behind a huge legacy from embracing popular, “low class”, medium of comics. He was also emerged as one of the figures in the style of Pop Art. His most famous paintings include; Whaam! , Drowning Girl, Look Mickey, Blam, and In the Car. Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed researching Pop Art. While covering and learning about the history, characteristics, and key artists of the style, I have fallen in love with it. What I like most about the style would have to be the use of color and repetition.
While the wide variety of colors typically used makes the piece ook a bit chaotic, the use of repetition of the same image brings it back to a sense of cohesiveness. Personally, I believe Pop Art should make a comeback in today’s world of art and advertisement. Art trends have been revived and brought new life in the past, and I think Pop Art would prove very successful if it came back. Pop Art took the country by storm when it rose in the 1960’s and I believe it could do the same in today’s materialistic society. I can see technology companies using Pop Art advertisements in order to promote their companies in a different way.
In fact, Pop Art could possibly even prove more uccessful than it originally did considering the ease of communication and advertisement on the internet. If one of these Pop Art ads when viral, it would be able to reach a very broad audience very quickly. What surprised me most during this final, was my misconception about how “upbeat” Pop Art is. I originally though Pop Art was completely focused on fun and energy, I learned it was formed on a very dark, materialistic background. In conclusion, Pop Art is a complex style of art that has many unique components stemming from popular culture that made it into the smashing success that it was.
