Year 10 Visual Arts Term Three POP ARTS Name: 1
POP ART VOCABULARY Modernism: An art movement/trend characterised by moving away from traditional art and instead, using new and inventive forms of expression. Modernism began in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and led to the creation of many new styles in the arts and literature. Modernism refers to this movement s focus on: * New types of paints and other materials used for making art. * Expressing feelings, ideas, fantasies, and dreams instead of the objects, people and situations we actually see around us. * Creating abstractions, rather than representing what is real. * A rejection of naturalistic (realistic) colour. * A use of clearly visible brushstrokes, instead of blending paint marks in so that they disappear. * The acceptance of line, form, colour, and process as valid subject matter by themselves. * The audience being more active participants as interpreter of artworks. Each viewer must observe carefully, and get information about the artist's intentions and environment, before forming judgments about the work. Expressionism: An modernist art form, derived from a German art movement of 1905-1925, where the focus is on the feelings, moods, and ideas being communicated to the audience. Forms and representations are shaped by the artist in order to express the emotive intentions of the artist. Abstract Expressionism: A painting movement in which artists often apply paint rapidly and sometimes with force, to their often huge canvases in an effort to show feelings and emotions. Sometimes, also, artists will apply paint with large brushes, or they will drip, even throw paint onto canvas. Sometimes Abstract Expressionist art work looks like the marks have happened by accident or chance, but they have actually been highly planned. Popular culture: Also called mass culture. The focus of post WW2 middle class society on paperback novels and comic books, film, television, advertising, rock and roll music, cars and motorbikes, sports and the fashions of youth culture. Subject matter: The meaning or intention that the artist is communicating in the artwork. This could mean the narrative, story, idea and emotion that the artist wants to convey. Form: 1. Type of artwork for example: painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking. 2. The shapes and objects that the artist has rendered (drawn, painted, sculpted) in the artwork. These shapes and objects are what the artist uses to communicate his or her meaning or intention the subject matter. 2
POP ART VOCABULARY Low Art/low brow: Arts (visual arts, music, dance, drama) that are derived from or created about elements of popular culture. High Art/high brow: Fine art, also known as beaux-arts, art that is of universal transcendence, having withstood the test of time and representing the epitome of artistic achievement, as opposed to low art, which is also known as mass culture. Long ago (before the Industrial Revolution), only the upper classes the aristocracy, had the opportunity to engage with the arts and these were literature, opera, classical music, theatre, academic painting, sculpture, and architecture. Subject matter for art was focused on stories from ancient Greek and Roman legend, stories from the bible, portraits of heroic (usually male) people as well as royalty and the aristocracy, still life images of the possessions of the wealthy, and landscapes that often included the plush homes of the wealthy. However the lines between high and low arts as well as upper, middle and working classes, have become blurred especially in Australia. Commercial Art: Art that is used to sell goods and services. Pop Art: A focus on mass media and popular culture forms and techniques, representing commonplace objects and people from every day life. Bright, saturated, graphic, repeated images and forms characterise Pop Art. Cartoon: A drawing, especially in a newspaper, that tells a joke or a funny story, which can also be about politics. Ben-day dots: In printmaking, and newspaper printing, a process using screens of various dot patterns to mechanically produce shading effects. This process was invented by Benjamin Day (1839-1916). This process was utilised by Roy Lichtenstein in his painting. Screen printing: A way of printing by forcing ink through a stencil placed over a piece of gauze-like cloth, stretched over a frame. Prolific: Producing a great number or amount of something. Capitalist: Someone who has a large amount of money invested in business. A person who is highly engaged in money making activities. 3
Pop Art is an movement most associated with the work of New York artists of the early 1960s such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Claes Oldenburg, but artists who drew on popular imagery were part of an international phenomenon in various cities from the mid-1950s onwards. Following the popularity of the Abstract Expressionists, Pop's reintroduction of identifiable imagery (drawn from mass media and popular culture) was a major change for the direction of modernism. The subject matter became far from traditional "high art" themes of morality, mythology, and classic history; rather, Pop artists celebrated commonplace objects and people of everyday life, in this way seeking to elevate popular culture to the level of fine art. Perhaps owing to the incorporation of commercial images, Pop art has become one of the most recognizable styles of modern art. Just What Is It That Makes Today s Homes So Appealing?, 1956; Richard Hamilton (Collage) The Conceptual Framework The World By creating paintings or sculptures of mass culture objects and media stars, the Pop Art movement aimed to blur the boundaries between "high" art and "low" culture. The concept that there is no hierarchy of culture and that art may borrow from any source has been one of the most influential characteristics of Pop art. While the Abstract Expressionists focused on soul deep emotions, Pop artists searched for subject matter in the mediated world of advertising, cartoons, and popular imagery at large. But it is perhaps more precise to say that Pop artists were the first to recognise that there is no unmediated access to anything, be it the soul, the natural world, or the built environment. Pop artists believed everything is inter-connected, and therefore sought to show those connections in their artwork. Although Pop art encompasses a wide variety of work with very different intentions, it doesn t have a very emotive foundation. In contrast to the strong emotional content of Abstract Expressionism, which preceded it, Pop art is generally "coolly" ambivalent. Whether this is saying that the popular world is also like this, has been the subject of much debate. Pop artists seemingly embraced the post-wwii manufacturing and media boom. Some critics have cited the Pop Art choice of imagery as an enthusiastic endorsement of the capitalist market and the goods it circulated, while others have noted an element of criticism in the Pop artists' elevation of the everyday to high art. Flowers, 1964; Andy Screenprint) The majority of Pop artists began their careers in commercial art: Andy Warhol was an highly successful magazine illustrator and graphic designer; Ed Ruscha was also a graphic designer, and James Rosenquist started his career as a billboard painter. 4
Roy Lichtenstein Painter and Sculptor Born: October 27, 1923 - New York, New York Died: September 29, 1997 - New York, New York In the Car,1963 Big Painting VI, 1965 Thinking of Him, 1963 5
Roy Lichtenstein was one of the first American Pop artists to achieve widespread renown, and he became a focus for criticism of the Pop Art movement. His early work ranged widely in style and subject matter, and displayed considerable understanding of modernist painting: Lichtenstein would often maintain that he was as interested in the abstract qualities of his images as he was in their subject matter. However, the mature Pop style he arrived at in 1961, which was inspired by comic strips, was greeted by accusations of banality, lack of originality, and, later even copying. His highimpact, iconic images have since become synonymous with Pop Art, and his method of creating images, which blended aspects of mechanical reproduction and drawing by hand, has become central to critics' understanding of the significance of the movement. Conceptual Framework The World Art had carried references to popular culture throughout the twentieth century, but in Lichtenstein's works the styles, subject matter, and techniques of reproduction common in popular culture appeared to dominate the art entirely. Although, in the early 1960s, Lichtenstein was often accused of merely copying his pictures from cartoons, his method involved some considerable alteration of the source images. The extent of those changes, and the artist's rationale for introducing them, has long been central to discussions of his work, as it would seem to indicate whether he was interested above all in producing pleasing, artistic compositions, or in shocking his viewers with the garish impact of popular culture. Lichtenstein's emphasis on methods of mechanical reproduction - particularly through his signature use of Ben-Day dots - highlighted one of the central features of Pop Art, that all forms of communication, all messages, are filtered through codes or visual languages. Arguably, he learned his appreciation of the value of codes from his early work, in a varied range of modernist painting. This appreciation may also have later encouraged him to make work inspired by masterpieces of modern art; in these works he believed that high art and popular art were no different: both rely on code/visual language. Drowning Girl (1963) In the early 1960s, Lichtenstein gained renown as a leading Pop artist for paintings sourced from comic books, specifically DC Comics. Although artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns had previously integrated popular imagery into their works, no one hitherto had focused on cartoon imagery as exclusively as Lichtenstein. His work, along with that of Andy Warhol, heralded the beginning of the Pop art movement, and, essentially, the end of Abstract Expressionism as the dominant style. Lichtenstein did not simply copy comic pages directly, he employed a complex technique that involved cropping images to create entirely new, dramatic compositions, as in Drowning Girl, whose source image included the woman's boyfriend standing on a boat above her. Lichtenstein also condensed the text of the comic book panels, locating language as another, crucial visual element; re-appropriating this emblematic aspect of commercial art for his paintings further challenged existing views about definitions of "high" art. Oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas. Estate of Roy Lichtenstein - The Museum of Modern Art, New York 6
Conceptual Framework Artwork Brushstrokes, (1967) Lichtenstein was a prolific printmaker throughout his career, and his prints played a substantial role in establishing printmaking as a significant art form in the 1960s. Brushstrokes, one such print, reflects his interest in the importance of the brushstroke in Abstract Expressionism. Abstract Expressionist artists had made the brushstroke a vehicle to directly communicate feelings; Lichtenstein's brushstroke paintings focused on the structure and sense of movement, He created a series of the brushstroke works, using the same motifs again and again. Lichtenstein has said, "The real brushstrokes are just as pre-determined as the cartoon brushstrokes." Colour screen-print on white wove paper, Estate of Roy Lichtenstein - The Art Institute of Chicago Conceptual Framework Artwork Mirror I, (1977) Lichtenstein was particularly fascinated by the abstract way in which cartoonists drew mirrors, using diagonal lines to denote a reflective surface. He once remarked, "Now, you see those lines and you know it means 'mirror,' even though there are obviously no such lines in reality. It's a convention that we unconsciously accept." The mirror was a recurring motif for Lichtenstein during the 1970s, but the artist had experimented with the graphic representation of reflection in earlier works, driven in part by an interest in the relationship between women and mirrors - both in historical artworks and in contemporary culture. Although the series might have been inspired by the appearance of mirrors in cartoons, Lichtenstein clearly also wanted to engage with themes of reproduction and reflection, which have interested artists at least as far back as the Renaissance. Painted bronze, Estate of Roy Lichtenstein - San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA 7
MASS MEDIA- Visual Research: 1. Create a title page- Pop Arts as a two page spread in your Visual Diary. Ensure that it has features of the Pop Art style, such as saturated colour, graphic lines, appropriated cartoon style imagery. 2. Collect three cartoon images from the newspaper and glue them into you Visual Diary. Ensure that one of the images contains a representation of a reflective surface, like a mirror or a window. 3. Find an advertising image from the newspaper or a magazine that expresses an element of Pop Art that isn t purely photographic. Glue this image into your Visual Diary. Robert Rauschenberg. 8 Roy Lichtenstein
Visual Features of Pop Art: The characteristics of Pop Art artworks were clear lines and representations of symbols, people and objects found in the popular culture and sharp paintwork. Colour- The predominant colours used by Pop Art artists are yellow, red and blue. The colours used were vivid. In contrast to other art movements, pop art s colours don t reflect the artists inner sensation of the world. Instead, these colours refer to the popular culture. The culture that inspired American artist Andy Warhol to experiment with techniques such as silkscreen printing, which was a widely popular technique used for mass production. Outlines and tones- Roy Lichtenstein developed a style based on the visual vernacular of the comic strip. The main characteristics of this style were bold colours, black outlines, and tones rendered by Ben-day dots. These were the methods of printing tones in comic books during the 1950s and the 1960s. Logos and labelling- During the Pop Art movement, you could see logos and product labelling within imagery chosen by pop artists. Campbell s Soup Cans labels by Andy Warhol for example. Moreover, the labelling found on the shipping board that contained retail items was used as inspiration for pop art. Take for example Campbell s Tomato Juice Box or the Brillo Soap Box sculpture, both by Andy Warhol. 9
Try out your Pop Art colouring and Ben-Day skills on these images by Lichtenstein and Warhol. 10
Colour this version of Lichtenstein s Drowning Girl. Invent your own caption for the speech bubble. 11
Assessing your Understanding: Use your understanding about Pop Art, Roy Lichtenstein and the Pop Art vocabulary to respond to the following questions. Do not quote directly from the booklet rephrase your responses into your own words. 1. Describe the subject matter and forms that artists used before Modernism. Use the T.E.E.L. paragraph structure to respond. 2 marks 2. What was the major change to the forms artists used in painting, in the Modernist movement? Use a full sentence response. 1 mark 3. What subject mater did Abstract Expressionists focus on in their artmaking? (Full sentence). 1 mark 4. What was the inspiration for the forms used by Pop Artists in their artworks? (Full sentence). 1 mark 5. What was Roy Lichtenstein s source of inspiration from 1961? (Full sentence). 1 mark 6. What was Lichtenstein s method for creating images? (Full sentence). 1 mark 7. Describe Lichtenstein s rationale for introducing his style of artmaking. (Use TEEL). 3 marks 12 20
Assessing your Understanding, continued- 8. Describe what is considered to be an important communication feature of Pop Art? (Use TEEL). 2 marks 9. Explain which of the Frames this Pop Art feature relates to, describe the significant elements of the Frame? (Use TEEL). 2 marks 10. Explain why Lichtenstein was not just copying comic images to create his artworks. (Use TEEL). 3 marks 11. In your own words, describe the features of Pop Art. (Use TEEL). 3 marks 13