The Mermaid
Roy Lichtenstein
Adriana Kane, Danielle Caruso, Scott
Sherman, Sanne Wijnands, and Justin
Bajan
Roy lichtenstein
Research/context
Born: October 27, 1923
Period Of Art: Pop art
Famous pieces: Drowning Pieces,
Whaam, Oh, Jeff… I Love You Too…
But…, Look Micky
First work: Look Micky, 1961
Awards: national medal of the arts
1950
Education: Ohio State University
customers: Gunter Sachs
Died: september 29, 1997
Adriana Kane
The Mermaid
Landscape/Interac
tion
Roy Lichtenstein put a lot of focus into
the location of the sculpture, The
Mermaid. The Mermaid is actually a
boat, with a mermaid painted on it.
The fact that the sculpture is on an
island build in the pond makes a lot of
sense, since mermaids are half fish,
half human, somewhere in between
land and sea creatures. The fact that
you cannot see, but not reach, the
boat may be related to the idea that
mermaids have been part of history
throughout many different cultures
over many different time periods, but
have never been a tangible creature
that humans could see and
understand. They have always been
shown as secretive, quiet creatures,
living out of sight of humans.
Danielle Caruso and Sanne Wijnands
The Mermaid
Landscape/Interactio
n
Another part of the
mermaid’s placement is that
the boat is shown facing
upwards. A reason for this
could be that Lichtenstein
wanted to represent the
mermaid trying to jump out
of the water, rather than just
sit above it or in it. This may
be because unlike the typical
darkly colored, quiet
mermaid, this one is brightly
colored and louder. It is a
more modern, pop art version
of the mermaid.
Danielle Caruso and Sanne
Wijnands
The Mermaid
Revealing Details
In this work of art, Roy Lichtenstein
depicts a mermaid painted on a boat,
but the mermaid is not represented
how one normally would be. They
have been part of myths and legends
since ancient civilization, and have
almost always been shown as beautiful
women with a woman’s body with
long brown hair, and then below the
waist, the tail of a fish, with dark green
or dark blue scales. Lichtenstein,
however, paints this mermaid with
bright, outstanding colors; the
mermaid has long, bright blonde hair,
a light fish’s body instead of a murky,
dark color, and even bright red lipstick.
Also, the woman is only human from
the neck up.
Scott Sherman
The Mermaid
Revealing Details
Based on this painting, along with
Lichtenstein’s other paintings, I believe
he makes comic-like art out of more
serious subjects in order to be ironic.
Some evidence of that is a quote in
which he says, "When I have used
cartoon images, I've used them
ironically, to raise the question: Why
would anyone want to do this with
modern painting?” Much of his
artwork shows scenes of women
upset, or of dramatic scenes, depicted
as comics, such as “Hopeless” (1963),
shown to the right. This shows that he
likes the irony of putting things that
are not pop art, into pop art. One
other thing Lichtenstein does is depict
the women he draws all the same,
with blonde hair, red lips, and blue
eyes.
Scott Sherman
The Mermaid 2nd
Interesting Detail
An interesting detail of “The Mermaid”
is the way it is propped up. It is held by
two plain metal posts, one near the
back, and one near the front.
Lichtenstein could have found a way to
let the boat sit on the island, even
cementing it to the bottom, so that
the boat looked like it was just
balanced there. Instead, however, the
artist decided to not only keep it out of
the water by putting an island in the
pond, but also to keep it off the island,
by putting supports. His reason for this
could, like the previous slides
mentioned, be because mermaids are
supposed to be very mythical
creatures, and simply do not belong
anywhere.
Scott Sherman