Pop Art is an art, where everyday objects are used (comics, cans, burgers, etc.) as a subject, and often included into the work. The Pop Art is the direction of the Visual Arts in Western Europe and the United States of the late 1950-1960-ies. The term “Pop Art” was firstly used by Lawrence Alloway in his critical article, but in the meaning of “pop culture”. Pop Art is characterized by the portrayal of all features of pop culture and has a powerful influence on modern life; images are taken from the mass media and especially advertising. Although critics characterized it as low, loud, non-aesthetic, the supporters have seen it popular and non-discriminatory. (Pop Art)
Artists, on seeking flashiness and visibility of their creations, use poetic language of labels and advertising. Signs of mass culture play differently in the Pop Art works, but always in unexpected and absurd combinations, thereby seeking to separate the thing from myth, to show its true value.
Every artist has its own genre specialization. Sometimes images have entered into the picture as a direct quote, in a collage or photo montage, in other cases, the simulated compositional techniques of advertising billboards, the picture also could be increased in giant size, or made of unusual materials. Put in a different context, the original image loses its original identity, paradoxically transformed and reinterpreted, reveals its underside, and sometimes even depreciated.
Roy Lichtenstein was one of the first artists, whose works appealed not to the individual, but to the mass consciousness, he was accused of that by critics at first, but later younger colleagues made him one of the most influential artists of the XX century. Lichtenstein, received a classical education in the field of Fine Arts, but has become popular due to what is called "low art".
He gathered together all the clichés and invented a unique style, which has become widely recognized. The main thing that Lichtenstein wanted to achieve - to make his paintings look like printed and not created by a person.
Hence, their main feature - the use of a few typographical colors, black line and the dots, through which the artist sought the shade and depth of image. He painted red and blue dots using a stencil, and as a result of it - vivid pictures looked like enlarged images, transferred from the pages of a comic book on the canvas - but all was done by Lichtenstein. (Johnson, 9)
The work “Whaam!” was purchased by the Tate Gallery in London; the work does not put any serious issue and does not make think of it, what is, according to the majority, the meaning of art. However, such a high-profile acquisition contributed to the immense popularity of the first solo exhibition by Roy Lichtenstein at the Tate.
(Lichtenstein, Roy: “Whaam!”)
Andy Warhol thoroughly literal paintings and silkscreen prints of soup can labels, cardboard boxes, soap and some soft drinks in bottles. Andy Warhol - a famous American artist, designer, sculptor, producer, director, writer, publisher of magazines, and author of works that have become synonymous with commercial Pop Art.
The artist has made art accessible to the masses, so that people have learned to see the beauty of everyday things and understand that everything that surrounds them - beautiful inherently.
Andy Warhol brought a lot to contemporary art; he made it an instrument of income, arguing that a successful business is the most interesting thing in the art world. It was his idea to depict the seemingly trivial things, exalt everyday objects in a magnificent rank. That mass character of his paintings made him rich and famous. He originated the idea of serigraphy technology in the paintings, passion for acidic shades of colors.
Warhol reveals the superficial nature of things and gives everyone the opportunity to understand that iron or a vacuum cleaner could be as beautiful as the green hills and meadow flowers, because our life consists of such things. His passion for drawing ordinary things, Warhol explained very simply: "I work with what I like". (Warhol, 126) Can of soup "Campbell" (1962), according to the artist, was his best work. It all started with one painting, then the whole series was born.
(Warhol, Andy: Campbell soup can paintings)
Many artists sought to impersonal relation in their art. A number of examples have been by insensible degrees expressive of criticism, such as making rubbings by Lichtenstein and monotone repetitions of trivial images by Warhol, have an undoubtedly disturbing effect.
Despite the fact that it is remembered as American style, Pop Art movement began in Great Britain in the mid-1950s as an independent group of art combined with science fiction, comic books and supplies, many from America. Notwithstanding the fact that British artists influenced American, American style was distinct. American Pop Art was symbolic, anon, and invasive; English Pop, more personal and relative, expressed more imaginary view of popular culture, possibly due to the distance of Britain from it. British Pop artists usually have to deal with technologies and Pop culture as the theme, even images; many American artists of Pop Art, in fact, lived those ideas. (Pop Art)
Pop Art works were not taken in earnest by the people, but they got critical acclaim as one of the art forms appropriate to the high-tech, media-oriented Western society. Pop Art draws a line under the traditional forms of Visual Art, bringing them to their logical conclusion, and opens the way for entirely new types of artistic practices. One can treat Pop Art works in different ways, but to ignore the work of this style is impossible, because up to now they are all around us.
Reference List
Pop art. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved January 2, 2017 from http://academic.eb.com.ezproxy.library.csn.edu/levels/collegiate/article/60830#.
Johnson, T., Lichtenstein, R., Stavitsky, G., Exhibition, Exhibition, & Exhibition. (2005). Roy Lichtenstein: American Indian encounters ; Montclair Art Museum, October 16, 2005 - January 8,2006, Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of New Mexico, February 2 - April 22, 2006, Tacoma Art Museum, May 13 - September 4, 2006. Montclair, NJ: Montclair Art Museum.
Lichtenstein, Roy: “Whaam!”. [Image]. In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved January 2, 2017 from http://media1.academic.eb.com.ezproxy.library.csn.edu/eb-media/89/43689-004-BC73A370.jpg
Warhol, A., Michelson, A., & Buchloh, B. H. D. (2001). Andy Warhol. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Warhol, Andy: Campbell soup can paintings. [Image]. In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved January 2, 2017 from http://media1.academic.eb.com.ezproxy.library.csn.edu/eb-media/27/190627-050-2B20A74D.jpg
