The Pop Art, Art movement
Pop Art is an art movement that was born in the 1950s emerging in America and Britain around that time which also saw the art movement peak in the 1960s. It was inspired by the popular and commercial culture in the western world and this saw many countries and cultures contributing to it, especially in the 1960s and 1970s. It came about as a rebellion against the traditional forms of art that existed at the time.
Introduction to the movement | Pop Art
Emerging in the 1950s in Britain and the late 1950s in America, the Pop Art movement reached its peak in the 1960s. At the time, young artists felt that what they were taught in art school and what they saw in museums didn’t coincide with their lives or even the things they saw around them every day. This led them to revolt against the dominant approaches to art and culture and traditional views on what art should be. The preceding art movements to which this art movement was a reaction to were abstract expressionism, which was a highly personal and philosophical form of art, and the elitism of traditional and modernist ‘high art’.
Before this particular art movement, historically, art was majorly characterized by themes about religion, spirituality, myths, and humans. Life in the countryside, love, and portraits were some of the other elements of notice in art. And so, the artists of the art movement instead turned to sources such as Hollywood movies, advertising, product packaging, pop music, and comic books for their imagery and inspiration. It was often referred to as anti-art for refusing to abide by contemporary art standards at the time.
Development
Seeing that Pop Art blended fine art with popular culture, it went on to incorporate everyday objects into painting, sculpture, silkscreen, collages, and multimedia works so that anyone walking down Broadway could easily recognize the art. It was also characterized by everyday imagery, a merging of fine art with popular culture, criticism of consumerism, bold colors, humor, appropriation, repetition, monumental imagery, and regional differences. The artwork contained very bold imagery with intense colors and a hint of irony in the artwork itself.
Hard-edged compositions were a popular motif used to defuse the ‘painterly looseness’ of styles like abstraction, impressionism, and abstract expressionism. Many of the this art pieces are made up of distinctive or fragmented shapes. Some artists would also satirize objects by enlarging them to almost comical proportions.
The objects or images which are often displayed in collages were arranged in an artistic process called appropriation. This is the copying, borrowing or altering of images or objects from mass popular culture and so appropriation took on an entirely new significance in art.
Significant Personalities
Richard Hamilton has often been named the founding father of British Pop Art for outlining the aims and ideals of the movement as have been mentioned. He believed that art was not just for galleries and exhibitions but a way of life thus he contributed to making art mainstream and not just for private exhibitions. He used visual juxtapositions to capture the energy of the new home electronic television sets. His style also merged art with consumerism which would then become one of the foundational elements within Pop art and the movement.
Andy Warhol who is most probably a more widely referenced proponent of the movement used his celebrity status to spread this Art to other artistic spheres, especially film. Sometimes known as the Pope of Pop, Andy Warhol integrated commercial aspects into his paintings which initially caused offense that rippled through the art world. The controversy and arguments over his paintings, their mundane, different subject matters, and their non-traditional styles were an aid in making him a household name in America and far beyond. Oftentimes, he is seen as the forefather of independent Film.
Roy Lichtenstein was initially working in cubism and abstract expressionism before moving to Pop Art. He swiftly became one of the most famous names in the movement where his art often focused on comic book panels, blown up to huge proportions to examine a singular face or image from the scene. Being no stranger to controversy, his artworks as well received severe criticism with articles being published in magazines about his art. Over time, the criticism faded leaving him as one of the most renowned artists of the Pop art movement.
Rise and Fall of the movement
Pop Art is the most enduring and popular modern art movement. The bright and colorful works made the movement the most influential genre in recent history. It had a profound impact on fine art, design, and popular culture and fundamentally changed how art is perceived. The Art movement was established first in the United Kingdom and then America in the 1950s. It was a movement in the direction of postmodernism and a way of rejuvenation in the field of art that was developed to challenge the contemporary forms of culture and hierarchy/scale that encompassed fine art. One of its aims was to empower everyday objects as sources of artistic inspiration which saw the campaign beome a revolutionary force in the history of art as we see it. Because of this, more modern artists noticed the bridge between ‘high’ art and ‘low’ culture.
It followed a prolific period of change in modern art with roots in Neo-Dada and other art movements, it went one step further and questioned the very definition of ‘art’. The artists in the movement changed the perception of what fine art could be breaking down the barriers between art. Seeing that it took inspiration from popular culture, artists like Andy Warhol made it even more iconic forever intertwining the memory of great performers like Marilyn Munroe with his famous screenprints.
References
Eden Gallery. (n.d.). Pop Art Movement: What Is It & When Was It started? [online] Available at: https://www.eden-gallery.com/news/pop-art-movement.
www.widewalls.ch. (n.d.). The Evolution of the Pop Art Movement | Widewalls. [online] Available at: https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/pop-art-movement-history-context.
Art Business News. (2021). How Pop-Art Changed Perception of Art. [online] Available at: https://artbusinessnews.com/2021/06/how-pop-art-changed-perception-of-art/.
Tate (n.d.). Pop art – Art Term. [online] Tate. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/pop-art#:~:text=Emerging%20in%20the%20mid%201950s.
Artland Magazine. (2019). Pop Art Movement: Artists and Artworks. [online] Available at: https://magazine.artland.com/art-movement-pop-art/#:~:text=The%20first%20definition%20of%20Pop.