American Pop Art Essay Example
Examine the mass media's influence on both the formal and iconographic features of American Pop Art. Centre your discussion on one or two examples each of the work of the following artists: Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, Tom Wesselmann, James Rosenquist.
Pop Art is one of the major art movements of the Twentieth Century. Characterized by themes and techniques drawn from mass culture such as advertising and comic books, pop art is widely interpreted as a reaction to the ideas of abstract expressionism which preceded Pop in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
The decade of the 1960s was perhaps one of the most provocative, in terms of culture, politics and philosophy, of the 20th century. The amazing growth that transpired in America from the end of World War II through the cold war period of the 1950s resulted in a newly formed consumer culture. In the first years of the decade, Pop artists responded to this new commercialism and embraced consumerism as a fitting subject of their art. Hallmarks of Abstract Expressionism such as expression and gesture were replaced with cool, detached, mechanical illustrations of common objects, often based on advertising images. Basing their techniques, style and imagery on certain aspects of mass reproduction, media-derived imagery and consumer society, Pop artists began to erode the gulf between high art and low art, taking inspiration from advertising, pulp magazines, billboards, movies, television, comic strips, and shop-window displays. For instance, mass produced supermarket food is often the subject matter of its art including hamburgers, French fries, sandwiches, soup cans, soda and beer cans, and cakes.
Among Pop Art's famous examples are Tom Wesselman and his Great American Nude series, Andy Warhol's canonization of the Campbell's soup can, Roy Lichtenstein's blowups of comic strips, James Rosenquist and his juxtaposed image stories and Claes Oldenburg's Store'. These artists believed that art had
Pop Art is one of the major art movements of the Twentieth Century. Characterized by themes and techniques drawn from mass culture such as advertising and comic books, pop art is widely interpreted as a reaction to the ideas of abstract expressionism which preceded Pop in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
The decade of the 1960s was perhaps one of the most provocative, in terms of culture, politics and philosophy, of the 20th century. The amazing growth that transpired in America from the end of World War II through the cold war period of the 1950s resulted in a newly formed consumer culture. In the first years of the decade, Pop artists responded to this new commercialism and embraced consumerism as a fitting subject of their art. Hallmarks of Abstract Expressionism such as expression and gesture were replaced with cool, detached, mechanical illustrations of common objects, often based on advertising images. Basing their techniques, style and imagery on certain aspects of mass reproduction, media-derived imagery and consumer society, Pop artists began to erode the gulf between high art and low art, taking inspiration from advertising, pulp magazines, billboards, movies, television, comic strips, and shop-window displays. For instance, mass produced supermarket food is often the subject matter of its art including hamburgers, French fries, sandwiches, soup cans, soda and beer cans, and cakes.
Among Pop Art's famous examples are Tom Wesselman and his Great American Nude series, Andy Warhol's canonization of the Campbell's soup can, Roy Lichtenstein's blowups of comic strips, James Rosenquist and his juxtaposed image stories and Claes Oldenburg's Store'. These artists believed that art had