Pop Art
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
The early sixties saw a revolution in mass media, consumer advertising, and popular culture in general. The art movement of Abstract Expressionism was fading, and from it came the Pop Art movement. These artists were tired of the over-serious and controlled methods of the Abstract Expressionism (Sandler 146). They began to defy its conventions in their work, using concrete images from popular culture with little or no interpretation or transformation (Sandler 149). Pop Art became then, a product of popular culture.
The number of televisions owned in America went from ten thousand in 1947 to more than four million ten years later (Fineburg 244). Mass media permeated the lives of everyone. Advertising was a large part of the media, and for the first time, people became bombarded by the common images and ideas. Repetitive messages reached almost everyone in America. In 1962 the, until then, underground Pop Art movement broke out on the New York scene, and soon became a part of the whole art scene and even mass media (Sandler 146). It featured these same mass-communicated images as art rather than what their original, usually commercial purpose was.
What is different about Pop Art is that it uses common images from mass media, sometimes reproduced through a commercial art process (Fineburg 146). The Abstract Expressionists were appalled by this new movement. For the first time in the history of American art, they had achieved international recognition for American work (Sandler 146). They believed that art's purpose was to reveal the artist's inner feelings and visions, and consequently produced somewhat confusing abstract work (Sandler 146). The blatant, obvious imagery of Pop Art was, to them, anti-art. Pop Art was in direct reaction to the bombardment of media messages; art is a reflection of culture, and the main and obvious parts of culture of that time were the common and newly universal images that media brought to people. Because of mass media, most prominently the advent of television, people of this time were the first to really have a good look at what the world around them was like. Pop Art was a reaction to the new intrusion of these ideas.
A famous Pop Art work, by Andy Warhol, was Campell’s Soup Can (1962). In the style of Pop Art, it is a flawless, sharp, but simplified painting of an easily recognizable image: that of a Campbell's soup can. As Andy Warhol himself said: "the Pop artists did images that anyone walking down broadway could recognize in a split second--comics, picnic tables, men's trousers, celebrities, shower curtains, refrigerators, Coke bottles--all the great modern things that the Abstract Expressionists tried so hard not to notice at all (Sandler 146)." Adopting the goal of closing the gap between life and art, pop artists embraced the common environment of everyday life. Many times the images were enlarged, colored differently, or otherwise isolated or amplified, but were always easily recognizable. By using images that reflect modern materialism and the vulgarity of mass culture, they tried to provide a look at reality even closer to reality than that of the earlier realistic work ("Pop Art"). Pop Art is characterized by cool literalism shown in clearly defined forms, rather than the "ambiguous painterly brushwork" of Abstract Expressionism (Sandler 146). Abstract Expressionist art before it was not obvious or easy to understand.
Because Pop Art was easy to relate to and understand, it soon became a big part of the media and popular culture. Fashion, advertising, and commercial art began to mimic the styles of Pop Art. In this, ironically, art from culture became a part of the same culture it came from. The distinct styles of the artists came from commercial processes, for example, Andy Warhol used a photo-mechanical silk-screening process, Roy Liechtenstein used the Ben Day Dot system of coloring illustrations (much like a comic book), and Rosenquist painted in a billboard style (Fineburg 247). In that their art was in a way, much like commercial art, its style was easily copied, intentionally or otherwise, in advertising and other media. In this way, Pop Art and pop culture were destined to mix with one another. Even now Pop Art is a part of culture. It changes to reflect the changes in culture, but otherwise has the same characteristics.
Pop Art is a direct result of the particular changes in culture that occurred in the early sixties, and continues to be a reflection of modern culture. The works of the early artists themselves are now a part of pop culture. Art that uses images from popular culture is still a large part of popular art. Pop Art endures because it is so simple and accessible to everyone. Pop art has been looked at as a critique of consumerism and commercialization, and also as a celebration of modern culture (Fineburg 149). Andy Warhol said that Pop Art is about "liking things" and is a way to uphold the things that a commercialized society enjoys (Sandler 149). Art is an expression of the society that bears it, and in this case, it could be argued that consumer goods, pop culture, and mass media are largely embraced by modern culture.
Works Cited:
Fineburg, Jonathan. Art Since 1940: Strategies of Being. Henry N. Abrams, Inc. 1995.
Sandler, Irving. "The Deluge of Popular Culture." American Images: The SBC Collection of Twentieth-Century American Art. Ed. Robert Morton. Henry N. Abrams, Inc. New York. 1996.
"Pop Art," Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2000.
The number of televisions owned in America went from ten thousand in 1947 to more than four million ten years later (Fineburg 244). Mass media permeated the lives of everyone. Advertising was a large part of the media, and for the first time, people became bombarded by the common images and ideas. Repetitive messages reached almost everyone in America. In 1962 the, until then, underground Pop Art movement broke out on the New York scene, and soon became a part of the whole art scene and even mass media (Sandler 146). It featured these same mass-communicated images as art rather than what their original, usually commercial purpose was.
What is different about Pop Art is that it uses common images from mass media, sometimes reproduced through a commercial art process (Fineburg 146). The Abstract Expressionists were appalled by this new movement. For the first time in the history of American art, they had achieved international recognition for American work (Sandler 146). They believed that art's purpose was to reveal the artist's inner feelings and visions, and consequently produced somewhat confusing abstract work (Sandler 146). The blatant, obvious imagery of Pop Art was, to them, anti-art. Pop Art was in direct reaction to the bombardment of media messages; art is a reflection of culture, and the main and obvious parts of culture of that time were the common and newly universal images that media brought to people. Because of mass media, most prominently the advent of television, people of this time were the first to really have a good look at what the world around them was like. Pop Art was a reaction to the new intrusion of these ideas.
A famous Pop Art work, by Andy Warhol, was Campell’s Soup Can (1962). In the style of Pop Art, it is a flawless, sharp, but simplified painting of an easily recognizable image: that of a Campbell's soup can. As Andy Warhol himself said: "the Pop artists did images that anyone walking down broadway could recognize in a split second--comics, picnic tables, men's trousers, celebrities, shower curtains, refrigerators, Coke bottles--all the great modern things that the Abstract Expressionists tried so hard not to notice at all (Sandler 146)." Adopting the goal of closing the gap between life and art, pop artists embraced the common environment of everyday life. Many times the images were enlarged, colored differently, or otherwise isolated or amplified, but were always easily recognizable. By using images that reflect modern materialism and the vulgarity of mass culture, they tried to provide a look at reality even closer to reality than that of the earlier realistic work ("Pop Art"). Pop Art is characterized by cool literalism shown in clearly defined forms, rather than the "ambiguous painterly brushwork" of Abstract Expressionism (Sandler 146). Abstract Expressionist art before it was not obvious or easy to understand.
Because Pop Art was easy to relate to and understand, it soon became a big part of the media and popular culture. Fashion, advertising, and commercial art began to mimic the styles of Pop Art. In this, ironically, art from culture became a part of the same culture it came from. The distinct styles of the artists came from commercial processes, for example, Andy Warhol used a photo-mechanical silk-screening process, Roy Liechtenstein used the Ben Day Dot system of coloring illustrations (much like a comic book), and Rosenquist painted in a billboard style (Fineburg 247). In that their art was in a way, much like commercial art, its style was easily copied, intentionally or otherwise, in advertising and other media. In this way, Pop Art and pop culture were destined to mix with one another. Even now Pop Art is a part of culture. It changes to reflect the changes in culture, but otherwise has the same characteristics.
Pop Art is a direct result of the particular changes in culture that occurred in the early sixties, and continues to be a reflection of modern culture. The works of the early artists themselves are now a part of pop culture. Art that uses images from popular culture is still a large part of popular art. Pop Art endures because it is so simple and accessible to everyone. Pop art has been looked at as a critique of consumerism and commercialization, and also as a celebration of modern culture (Fineburg 149). Andy Warhol said that Pop Art is about "liking things" and is a way to uphold the things that a commercialized society enjoys (Sandler 149). Art is an expression of the society that bears it, and in this case, it could be argued that consumer goods, pop culture, and mass media are largely embraced by modern culture.
Works Cited:
Fineburg, Jonathan. Art Since 1940: Strategies of Being. Henry N. Abrams, Inc. 1995.
Sandler, Irving. "The Deluge of Popular Culture." American Images: The SBC Collection of Twentieth-Century American Art. Ed. Robert Morton. Henry N. Abrams, Inc. New York. 1996.
"Pop Art," Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2000.
