Retroactive Paul Rauschenberg Analysis
Retroactive: A Single Work of Art, With Many Faces By: Logan Dodge
Few works of art are able to perfectly capture a period of time as thoroughly as Paul Rauschenberg does with his masterpiece titled, Retroactive. He was one of the first artist who wanted to take mass media into the art studio, and break down the barriers between art and things like advertising, newspapers, and television. Retroactive is a brilliant collage of iconic images from the early 60’s and it captured all of its political drama, scientific breakthrough, and the emotions that went along with that time period. It is a masterpiece, but it is a masterpiece that almost did not happen.
In 1961, America led a failed invasion of the communist island of Cuba. This led to the Cuban missile crisis the following year and in 1963, a man sits in the back seat of a car with his wife. Both of them waving to the crowd gathered at the sides of the road. A few minutes later that very car would be racing away as the onlookers scattered in terror. The president had been shot and killed in Dallas, and an artist decides to abandon a painting he had been working on. The death of President Kennedy left people in awe. The great man who had prevented doomsday, and who had stood up to the communist was now …show more content…
It uses themes of collage through the gathering and connecting unrelated images into a cohesive work. His use of pop culture images and icons, familiar with the American public and the rest of the world as well, allows me to say that this is also a form of pop art. The pictures also hold significant importance in a historical sense and he uses these images to show what important events took place around the time that the primary figure of this image, Kennedy, was assassinated. This also shows themes of him using art as historical narrative and cultural story
Few works of art are able to perfectly capture a period of time as thoroughly as Paul Rauschenberg does with his masterpiece titled, Retroactive. He was one of the first artist who wanted to take mass media into the art studio, and break down the barriers between art and things like advertising, newspapers, and television. Retroactive is a brilliant collage of iconic images from the early 60’s and it captured all of its political drama, scientific breakthrough, and the emotions that went along with that time period. It is a masterpiece, but it is a masterpiece that almost did not happen.
In 1961, America led a failed invasion of the communist island of Cuba. This led to the Cuban missile crisis the following year and in 1963, a man sits in the back seat of a car with his wife. Both of them waving to the crowd gathered at the sides of the road. A few minutes later that very car would be racing away as the onlookers scattered in terror. The president had been shot and killed in Dallas, and an artist decides to abandon a painting he had been working on. The death of President Kennedy left people in awe. The great man who had prevented doomsday, and who had stood up to the communist was now …show more content…
It uses themes of collage through the gathering and connecting unrelated images into a cohesive work. His use of pop culture images and icons, familiar with the American public and the rest of the world as well, allows me to say that this is also a form of pop art. The pictures also hold significant importance in a historical sense and he uses these images to show what important events took place around the time that the primary figure of this image, Kennedy, was assassinated. This also shows themes of him using art as historical narrative and cultural story