Alex Katz's Four Children: The Pop Art Movement

The heavenly portrayal of the background and foreground shows a flawless use of space. The distance between the foreground and background was well selected for this piece. This is die to the fact that the two children are not close enough to exaggerate the way they look but they are also not too far away. The distance covered in the background communicates a message of clarity and relaxation that is evident in the children's faces. Two dimensional portrayal of the painting appears to fit the calculated purpose. The

Attention Getter: The American culture is so engulfed into consumerism that we take every day items and objects for granted we don 't necessarily realize the impact and importance to have on our life and how we live vicariously through them. Today I 'm going to talk about one man that took these concepts into his artistic ability and thereby created a whole new culture in what we see is art today. This man who is considered one of the fathers of pop art goes by the name of Andy Warhol.

Pop art got its name from Lawrence Alloway, who was a British art critic in 1950’s. The name “Pop Art” reflected on the “familiar imagery of the contemporary urban environment” (kleiner, 981). This art form was popular for its bold and simple looks plus its bright and vibrant colors. An example of this type of art is the oil painting done by Andy Warhol, “Marilyn Diptych” (Warhol, Marilyn Diptych) in 1962. The Pop art movement became known in the mid-1950 and continued as main type of art form until the late 1960’s. The Pop art movement, was a movement where medium played a huge part in the society, with it reflecting on advertisements, comic strips and even celebrities, like Marilyn. This movement also has a large

Pop Art emerged in Britain in the late 50’s and the United States in the early 60’s.(Mamiya 1992) Pop Art is generally known today as a representation of celebrating popular culture and consumerism, however it’s background and origins are far more broad and extensive. There are many factors and influences that lead to the creation of the Pop Art movement such as adjusting to life after World War II, new technological advances that lead to mass cooperate growth, the evolution of Abstract Expressionism and also social issues in the media such as feminism. (Smith 2001; Mamiya 1992) Many of these factors overlap and act as a catalyst in the creation of Neodadaism and eventually Pop Art. (Livingstone 1992) Pop Art does not have a soul distinct style nor just one major influence and this can be proven by looking at key artists of the movement such as Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and James Rosenquist as well as female Pop artists such as Martha Rosler. (Brauer, Edwards, Finch & Hopps 2001) Exploring these artists and the major influences of their work will break down Pop Art and establish the movement’s purpose as well as its evolution.

4. Space- Perspective is demonstrated in many ways. This artwork takes up almost the whole canvas. The horses on the edge look like they were maybe even squeezed in. All of the characters in this artwork look to be congregated to the middle of the painting, besides the villages in the distance. Linear perspective is used in the placement of the villages in the background and in all the men and horses, which are grouped in the middle of the screen. Looking at the features in the painting I notice the use of overlapping and vertical placement, which both imply depth. The horses overlap each other as well as the gentlemen and other elements of the painting. The brown horse’s head overlaps the black one hiding its mouth. The villages and hills in the background appear to be very far away (diminishing size); they look smaller and distant from the rest of the main aspects of the painting.

Claude Monet’s use of the illusionary space in this image is actually quite amazing. At first glance, your eye is drawn towards the left side of the painting, due to the amount of large and bulky objects in the foreground. Suddenly though your eyes turn to Camille; the woman gazing into the distance. As she stares off into the distance she acts a point to redirect the focus of the piece past the water and into the village across the river. This painting has a surprising power in that it is ability to fully mesmerize and captivate the viewer in a way few pieces of art can.

The sixties were a time of social and political change in America, and the art world was not left untouched. Early in the decade a new movement focused on popular culture and national icons began to develop. It was aptly named Pop art. "Many critics were alarmed by Pop, uncertain whether it was embracing or parodying popular culture and fearful that it threatened the survival of both modernist art and high culture..." (Stokstad 1101) Pop artists were not the first to make cultural statements with their work, however controversial art always draws criticism and attention. One of the most well known artists of the Pop movement was Andy Warhol, a young commerial illustrator from manhattan. Warhol's use of popular icons and brands as the focus

The artist used vertical perspective, overlapping, diminishing size, and atmospheric perspective to achieve the perceptual style. The vertical perspective means that the foreground is at the bottom of the painting, and middle ground is in the middle, and the background is on the top. In this painting, the carriage is the closest to the audience, so it is located on the bottom. The mountain is the farthest, so it is on the top. Meanwhile, the artist made objects overlap with each other to creates an illusion of near and far. The trees on the left side of this painting overlaps with the houses in the back. Thus, the audiences can feel that the trees are nearer than house. At the same time, when the tree overlaps with the houses, which also create an illusion to the audiences that the trees are in the front of the house. The author also used diminishing size to illustrate the distant between the objects on this work and the observer. Diminishing size means that objects come smaller as they go farther away. In the painting, the horses are much “bigger” than the kids. It does not mean that the horses are literally much bigger but means that the horses are closer to the audience. Atmospheric perspective means that the objects in the foreground is clear and crisp, and the things in the background is less clarity, and become hazy. In this painting, the color is vibrant in the foreground, and the color becomes bluish-gray in the background. The mountain looks vague, and the horses and the houses are really clear. The artist used all those methods to create the illusion of space and depth and used space and depth to create

The painting demonstrates diminution of scale, for the long palm trees at the top of the composition appear smaller than the long palm trees placed lower on the page. Not only does the artist use diminution of scale, but they also use vertical location. The bushier palm trees n the back left side of the composition all appear to be the same size, but because some are placed higher on the page, they appear to be further away than the ones placed lower on the page. The artist use of overlapping helps achieve perception of depth. By overlapping the trees it makes it look like the painting has much more depth. Because of all of this, the painting portrays deep depth, not only because of the multiple overlapping and diminution of scale, but also because of the multiple horizon lines, causing the painting to look like the road goes on over the hills. This painting is a narrative, and its focal point is down the road. As the roads begin large and gets smaller, the eyes follow the road until it ends.

Andy Warhol being not simply a Pop artist, but an American artist who was known as the master of Pop Art, and about two of Warhol’s most famous paintings; Coca-Cola and Campbell’s Soup Cans. Andy Warhol was an artist and filmmaker, an initiator for the Pop Art movement in the 1960s. Warhol used mass production techniques to elevate art into the supposed unoriginality of the commercial culture of the United States. Warhol’s early drawings frequently recalls the Anglo-Saxon tradition of nonsense humor, a characteristically childlike exuberance, and the fact that Warhol was successfully earning a living in the advertising industry at the time was sufficient for many to dismiss his entire artistic output during this period as “commercial art”. Fifty years ago, Pop art captured the spirit of Warhol’s young art, but that basic structure has been (to most people) a revealing profitless movement for years. Pop art was a 1960s movement that focused on everyday objects, comic books and mediated images — now seems quaint and playful, but not Warhol. In the first part of Andy Warhol’s career he was an iconoclast, in the second, the artist as businessman. In 1960 Warhol’s graphic works underwent a fundamental change in terms of subject matter, accompanied at about the same time by a change in technique. Warhol’s graphic work covers areas not normally associated with the art of the twentieth century, and which might even be considered unique. In Andy Warhol’s paintings and prints of

As many artists during 1960s rebelled the cultural norms, Pop art reflected the social values of America during 1960s. It focused on the prejudice

From this I gathered the idea of sexuality in Pop Art was a form of

This depth or distance that the beholder of the eye misses as he/she analyzes the action of the 2-dimensional portrait is what’s called the painter’s space. In reality, one of the greatest abilities one’s eyes have is being able to determine depth and distance; small objects are at a far distance and bigger

In order to discuss pop art I have chosen to examine the work and to some extent lives of Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol who were two of the main forces behind the American movement. I intend to reflect the attitudes of the public and artists in America at this time, while examining the growing popularity of pop art from its rocky, abstract expressionist start in the 1950s through the height of consumer culture in the 60s and 70s to the present day.

‘pop art was open to all forms of communication and popular information in its attempt to embody all of reality in its own language’’ (Parmesani, 2012, P: 72).