Impact Of Pop Art

Though, throughout this time period, “the great majority of Americans disliked or even despised modern art,” it was an essential art movement in the 1950s and 1960s, and the “CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years,” creating a meaningful impact on the outcome of the Cold War (Saunders). “Abstract Expressionism stood for, above all else,

In relation to Brown’s work, we can see this individual expression emerging through her paintings by using reoccuring nude subjects that can be considered

“The movement's rise was aided by parallel growth in other areas” (ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ART HISTORY). Though after the Pop art movement’s peak during the mid-1960s, the movement took a turn, and found itself losing its popularity; when the Vietnam War was in effect; by the late 1960’s and early 1970’s the pop art movement had ended.

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.

For this essay i have been asked to discuss a contemporary image from the last 30 years from fine art,design media or the everyday. I have decided to choose the Painting titled Plan (1993) by Jenny Saville, a contemporary British painter associated with the Young British Artists, known for her large-scale painted depictions of nude women.

Pop Art is defined as art based on modern popular culture and the mass media, especially as a critical or ironic comment on traditional fine art values. “To Americans, Pop Art was an artistic manifestation which reflected their own culture.” (Elmaleh 1) Many artists or writers will take normal, everyday things in nature, and will turn them into brighter things. This was considered to be a new movement because it was right after the war, so it was a darker time period. Throughout the text, Joe Hill tried to convey many things with his short story about Art using his own culture and what he knew, but I think the most obvious message that he tried to convey is emotion.

{Berger defines nakedness “as being to oneself”.} {Nudity is “to be seen naked by others, not recognizing oneself’’}. An example of one of many nude paintings is a the dark-haired women posing in the bathtub holding her hair. In the photo the women is wanting to be intoxicating and looking as if she wants to be seen as an object of sex and also put on display her body off to the world. So, she is giving herself up as a object willingly. In the painting, “Nell Gwynne”, by Lely, the women is showing submissiveness to the painter/owner. She is also wanting to display herself for the enjoyment of men.

Nudity has been an essential aspect in Western art. After the Renaissance, this is when the nudity was exploited as humans in their natural state. The nude form first was conquered by the ancient Greeks from approximately two thousand five hundred years ago. The Greeks celebrated the human body and cultivated the mastery of the human body through these sculptures of David. Rubens captures the nudity of Venus and makes her seen pure and compelling. When taking a glance at this masterpiece, one is immediately fixated and dragged in, it is a piece that cannot be missed. Ruben’s expression in this piece can be defined as timeless. Historians conclude that besides the magnificent Michelangelo, no other painter had a greater knowledge of the human body and visual power as Rubens. This is how he is able to cultivate these mythological pieces, and incorporate much detail. There is much life in Rubens’ painting, through the vibrant hues and how he depicts Venus and Adonis as these massive creatures. Figures depicted in art are more often nude then one would think. It is seen the human body is at its ideal state when artist depict the figure as nude. It is seemed as heroic because humans are compelled to see how artist illustrate the human body. Hence why the male and female body is the central theme of western art. When thinking about the human form, there is nothing more compelling, which is why the theme is still prominent in modern and contemporary

One of the most significant decades in 20th-century art, the 1960s saw the rise of Pop Art, Op Art, Minimalism, Conceptual Art, Performance Art, and Feminist Art, among countless other styles and movements. Artists began to notice that American culture was filled with commercial images: on television and billboards, and in magazines and newspapers, commercial art was used to sell everything from dish scrubbers to soup cans to cars to movie stars and their movies. Pop artists used commercial art techniques to create new artistic forms.

The 1960s in the United States was known for being a period of change. These changes were social, political, and environmental and left long lasting results on the country. People were challenging tradition and breaking free from their conservative pasts in the year’s prior in order to bring about reform to their country. The 1960s was a time where war was very prevalent and this resulted in changes of daily life. Art was transformed as a result and different artists brought new techniques and inspirations that would influence present day art. With the introduction of styles never used before in art, various art movements swept through this iconic decade.

Coming to the United States in the early 1950’ and reaching its peak of activity in the 1960’s would be Pop art. This type of art was everywhere, billboards, commercial products, and celebrity images. You see this type of art mostly in comic strips. This type of art celebrates the everydays items that people used. Pop art was the start of a new art movement,

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

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).

Throughout the world, popular culture has made an impact, especially on especially to people living throughout the world. The impact of popular culture has several benefits on both individuals and society. Several of the benefits that popular culture has on society are entertaining, informing, and interactions.