Roy Lichtenstein was a prominent American pop artist that rose to fame in the 1960s. Hes known
for his comic book style paintings and sculptures. Through the 70s and 80s he worked on surreal
are but is still know mostly for his work in pop art.
rev·er·ie
[rev-uh-ree] Show IPA
–noun
1.
a state of dreamy meditation or fanciful musing: lost in reverie.
2.
a daydream.
3.
a fantastic, visionary, or impractical idea: reveries that will never come to fruition.
The Pop Art movement sprung up as a result of a fascination with popular culture, and affluent
post war society. Pop Art appeared in the 1950’s and endured through to the 1960’s. The
movement originally grew out of America but quickly spread to Britain. Pop Art celebrated simple
every day objects such as soup cans, soap, washing powder, pop bottles, and comic strips, and in
effect, turned commonplace items into icons. Pop Art was directly influenced by Dadaism in that it
pokes fun at the traditional art world by using images from the streets and supermarkets, and
suggesting that they are art forms in themselves. Pop Art encompasses definitions of the popular,
the expendable, the mass produced, the young, witty and sexy, and the glamorous. Andy Warhol
is Pop Art’s most notable artist in that he brought the art form to the public eye. He created
numerous screen prints of Coke bottles, Campbell’s soup tins, and film stars such as Marilyn
Monroe. This in effect contributed to the iconography of the 20th century. Pop Art embraced
commercial techniques by creating machine produced art, which set artists apart from the previous
introspective styles of the Abstract Expressionists. Famous Pop Artists include Richard Hamilton,
Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Tom Wesselmann,
and Robert Rauschenberg.
Time Period
ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM
KEY DATES: 1940-1960s
Emerging in the 1940s in New York City and flourishing in the Fifties, Abstract Expressionism
is regarded by many as the golden age of American art. The movement is marked by its use
of brushstrokes and texture, the embracing of chance and the frequently massive canvases,
all employed to convey powerful emotions through the glorification of the act of painting itself.
Some of the key figures of the movement were Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de
Kooning, Robert Motherwell and Franz Kline. Although their works vary greatly in style, for
example the sprawling pieces of Pollock at one end of the spectrum and the brooding works
of Rothko at the other, yet they all share the same outlook which is one of freedom of
individual expression.
The term was originally used to describe the work of Kandinsky but was adopted by writers in
the Fifties as a way of defining the American movement, although the practitioners, disliking
being pigeonholed, preferred the term New York School.
The movement was enormously successful both critically and commercially. The result was
such that New York came to replace Paris as the centre for contemporary art and the
repercussions of this extraordinarily influential movement can still be felt thirty years after its
heyday.
REPRESENTATIVE ARTISTS:
Jackson Pollock
Arshile Gorky
William Baziotes
Willem de Kooning
Josef Hoffmann
Adolph Gottlieb
Franz Kline
Mark Rothko
Barnett Newman
Robert Motherwell
Clyfford Still
OP ART
KEY DATES: 1960s
Op Art or Optical Art is the term used to describe paintings or sculptures which seem to swell
and vibrate through their use of optical effects. The movement's leading figures were Bridget
Riley and Victor Vasarely who used patterns and colours in their paintings to achieve a
disorientating effect on the viewer.
The sculptors Eric Olsen and Francisco Sobrino used layers of different coloured perspex to
create a similar illusion of distortion. The artists used established ideas on perceptive
psychology but needed to use maximum precision to gain the results they intended.
Op Art is a form of abstract art and is closely connected to the Kinetic and Constructivist Art
movements.
It was fashionable in the United States and Europe in the 1960s and 1970s but was greeted
with a certain degree of scepticism by the critics.
After 'The Responsive Eye' exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1965 the
term became a household name and the style was soon appropriated by fashion designers
and high street stores.
REPRESENTATIVE ARTISTS:
Bridget Riley
Heinz Mack
Victor Vasarely
Introduction to the Artistic Style of Op Art
Op art is the short form for the art movement known as optical art. Time magazine described Op
art as “Pictures That Attack the Eye” in October 1964; consequently, the Museum of Modern Art
in Manhattan created an exhibition of Op art in 1965 that boasted 123 paintings and sculptures
from 100 artists of 15 nations (Spike, 2008).
The optical art movement has been especially common in American art since the1960s, but the
style really traces back to the year 1839 and one French chemist, Michel-Eugene Chevreul. He
studied the effect of pairing complimentary colors, and his influence spread importantly to the
father of Op art, Georges Seurat, the inventor of pointillism (Spike, 2008).
Optical art is concerned with creating optical illusions. The style typically favors abstraction over
representation because observers must really focus their eyes and comprehend what they see.
An illusion might suggest one thing at first, but a closer look reveals something different in the
picture. Many Op art pieces are completed in two colors—black and white. The optical illusion
creates different responses in observers through patterns, flashes, contrasts, movement, and
hidden imagery. The observer is pulled into the picture in the same way that he or she is attacked
by the image.
Philip Taaffe (b. 1955) was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and trained at Cooper Union in New
York. He has studied and exhibited internationally, and his works appear in museums such as
Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. Taaffe demonstrates the concepts of Op art in works like
Eros and Psyche and Pine Columns. Eros and Psyche (1993-1994) is a vivid abstraction with
bold colors of red, white, black, and orange. This painting reflects a similar style to some Abstract
Expressionist works of Jackson Pollock.
The British artist, Bridget Riley, was born in 1931in London. Her art from the second half of the
twentieth century offers many examples of optical illusion. One beautiful work is done in the
traditional black and white—Movement in Squares (1961). In this piece, Riley shows that a simple
geometric pattern of checkerboard squares when arranged in a compelling way can create motion
and illusion. A colorful piece, Shadow Play (1990), uses many colors to create a geometric
pattern that inspires strong emotions in the observer. For example, the use of bright and warm
colors creates a happy feeling. Riley notably represented her country in the Venice Biennale
(1968) and became the first British contemporary painter and female to garner the Biennale’s
International Prize in painting.
Op art offers something in post-Modern and contemporary art for people who love powerful use of
concepts like geometry, line, color, and pattern.
1. Surrealism 1924-1950’ s
o 1.
o Surrealism is a style in which fantastical visual imagery from the subconscious mind is used with
no intention of making the work logically comprehensible.
o It was similar in some elements to the mystical 19th-century Symbolist movement, but was
deeply influenced by the psychoanalytic work of Freud and Jung.
o Art Cyclopediao http://www.artcyclopedia.com/history/surrealism.html
o 2.
o As the artistic movement, Surrealism came into being after the French poet Andre Breton 1924
published the first Manifesto du surrealisme. In this book Breton suggested that rational thought
was repressive to the powers of creativity and imagination and thus inimical to artistic
expression. An admirer of Sigmund Freud and his concept of the subconscious, Breton felt that
contact with this hidden part of the mind could produce poetic truth.
o Museum Quality Oil Paintings: Surrealismo http://www.huntfor.com/arthistory/C20th/surrealism.htm
2. Abstract Expressionism 1946-1960’ s
o 1.
o Like many other modern movements, Abstract Expressionism does not describe any one
particular style, but rather a general attitude; not all the work was abstract, nor was it all
expressive. What these artists did have in common were morally loaded themes, often
heavyweight and tragic, on a grand scale.
o WebMuseum, Paris: Abstract Expressionismo http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/tl/20th/abs-expr.html
o 2.
o These artists valued spontaneity and improvisation, and they accorded the highest importance
to process. Their work resists stylistic categorization, but it can be clustered around two basic
inclinations: an emphasis on dynamic, energetic gesture, in contrast to a reflective, cerebral
focus on more open fields of color. In either case, the imagery was primarily abstract. Even
when depicting images based on visual realities, the Abstract Expressionists favored a highly
abstracted mode.
o The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Abstract Expressionismo http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/abex/hd_abex.htm
3. Pop Art 1950’ s- 1960’ s
o 1.
o Pop Art is a style of art which explores the everyday imagery that is so much a part of
contemporary consumer culture. Common sources of imagery include advertisements,
consumer product packaging, celebrity photographs, and comic strips.
o Art Cyclopedia: Pop Arto http://www.artcyclopedia.com/history/pop.html
o 2.
o Andy Warhol's paintings of soup cans and movie stars are classic examples of Pop art. Pop
artists wanted to bring art back to the people and to make it more meaningful to everyday folks.
Critics saw Pop art as vulgar, sensational and without merit. Supporters liked it because they felt
o
o
it was an art everybody could understand and that it brought all elements of art and life to one
level. Some well-known artists of this period were Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Claes
Oldenburg.
A Life Time of Color: Pop Arthttp://www.sanford-artedventures.com/study/g_pop_art.html
138
‘Reciprocal Depiction’
The study now turns to the second half of the twentieth century with a broad view
of the stylistics of Modernism in place. As shown, the middle of the century
represents a turning point for Modernism, where competing styles converge, then
take new directions. The change earns a new but brief period. Late Modernism
arises and so coincides with the lower end of the time frame for the study, but is no
more significant for that. The transition is no more precise than the start of
Modernism, which is to say it allows a margin of two or three years, but for
convenience may be taken as starting at 1950, just as Modernism here has been
rounded out to a starting point in 1912. Modernism gains a second period, as Late
Modernism, and its first period consequently becomes Early Modernism. Period
here also admits to a subtle shift of place. Where Early Modernism was more
centred on Western Europe, Late Modernism centres more on New York and
London, and marginalizes Eastern Europe, Germany and Spain. Late Modernism
also involves competing styles and a version of abstraction, but ‘Overstyle’ and
‘Rerealism’ undergo more radical change and attention is firstly devoted to this
departure.
The change in general terms is away from an affirmation of the magical, mystical
and musical and toward a more brooding acceptance of their inconstancy. Work
now stresses doubt, frustration, mistakes and revision. The disaffection is reflected
in the distrust and dilution of preceding styles. As noted, abstraction and
‘simultaneous and successive depiction’ converge in some ways. But where
‘simultaneous and successive depiction’ accommodates abstraction amongst its rival
picture planes or abstraction accommodates the ‘simultaneous and successive’ as a
pattern of pictures, the combination cancels itself out. The result is in some respects
more traditional in that objects are less abstract, the picture plane tending to the
singular, but in other respects more radical in that object and picture plane variously 139
exhibit a new and puzzling incompleteness, an extreme supplementation of pigment
and medium and a multiplicity beyond the simultaneous or successive. In fact
construction now establishes a reciprocal relation between three-dimensionality and
two, the abstract and the concrete, pattern and picture. What is sampled is the
mutual dependence between materials and two-dimensionality, picture plane and
object. The style is here termed ‘Reciprocal Depiction’.
‘Reciprocal Depiction’ carries the rival projects of Early Modernism through to one
further and final stage or style. But ‘Reciprocal Depiction’ does not just explain
what becomes of the influence of Picasso, Klee and Miro on one hand, Ernst,
Magritte and Dali on the other. In assimilating them it also sets in place a more
complex sampling practice that rapidly suggests further projects for depiction and
painting. This, as much as developments in abstraction, sets the agenda for
subsequent periods to the century. However this chapter traces only the varieties of
‘Reciprocal Depiction’ for the period, while following chapters show how they
arrive at a further break of period, of Post Modernism. This is, of course, only to
delay considering the relation with abstraction in Late and Post-Modernism and a
fuller view of the periods. But this course enables firstly a stronger grasp of
‘Reciprocal Depiction’, of features rarely associated or properly considered in other
art histories.
To be clear on the terms, ‘Reciprocal Depiction’ is introduced as the name for a
style of painting that arises at this time, that deals in less than full abstraction, more
than traditional concrete depiction. It is not, as was the case with ‘simultaneous and
successive depiction’, merely the name given to a more general category of picture,
to which the historical variants of ‘Overstyle’ and ‘Rerealism’ can be assigned.
‘Reciprocal Depiction’ for just the period of Late Modernism, might aptly be called
‘Ambistyle’ or more pointedly perhaps, ‘Disillusion’, if discussion of the style in
subsequent periods arises. But the task is firstly to outline the main traits of
‘Reciprocal Depiction’ and to set in place sub-styles for period as need arises. Here
it is enough to appreciate its pervasive presence throughout the period, its influence.
‘Reciprocal Depiction’ arises in three ways. Firstly it uses an arrangement of discrete
pictures and sometimes notation within a larger map-like scheme to sample patterns 140
between pictures and other elements. Or reciprocally, it samples pictures and other
elements for such larger schemes or patterns. This is here termed ‘layout’, in
contrast with traditional ‘composition’, understood as the organisation within a
single picture. Secondly, it uses radical supplements to pigment and medium that
require novel application or manipulation so that they sample qualities that resist
standard depiction and objects, and reciprocally, samples depiction that nevertheless
succeeds, that gains purchase or traction in such material. This is here termed
‘traction’. Thirdly, it uses a fragmentation of object and picture plane that samples a
kind of cross-section to the depictive process, an interrupted state in which
completion or revision rest upon a range of reciprocal adjustments to material,
picture plane and object. This is here termed ‘interruption’. ‘Interruption’ may
include ‘layout’ or ‘traction’ while also dealing in less complete or discrete pictures,
more typical materials and techniques. All or some of these ways may be used in
‘Reciprocal Depiction’.
The years following World War II were characterized by enormous change on every level. The war
ended, leaving a new worldwide generation of veterans with young families struggling to rebuild
their lives. The pressing need for inexpensive housing and furnishings spurred a boom in design
and production. A new optimism—filled with the promise of the future—prevailed. Commercial jet
travel was introduced in 1957, and ease of travel in the jet age encouraged a growing fusion of
cultural influences. In particular, a blurring of Eastern and Western aesthetics and technology
represented an entirely new cultural fusion.
New materials and technologies helped to free design from tradition, allowing for increasingly
abstract and sculptural aesthetics as well as lower prices for mass-produced objects.
Related
Timelines (11)
Primary Thematic Essays (3)
Other Thematic Essays (29)
Maps (2)
Index Terms (33)
Share
The elaborate households of the pre-war years were gone, replaced by informality and
adaptability. Gone, too, was the conventional approach to furnishings as expensive and
permanent status objects. New materials and technologies, many of which had been developed
during wartime, helped to free design from tradition, allowing for increasingly abstract and
sculptural aesthetics as well as lower prices for mass-produced objects.
The most marked changes occurred in America, Italy, Scandinavia, and Japan. A growing number
of American firms such as the Herman Miller Furniture Company and Knoll International began to
build a reputation for manufacturing and marketing well-designed, high-quality, inexpensive
furniture made from new materials like fiberglass and plastics for the consumer market in the
postwar years. In an effort to revive their depressed postwar economy, Italian designers made a
self-conscious effort to establish themselves as leaders in the lucrative international marketplace
for domestic design. While initially they looked to traditional forms or materials for inspiration, they
also soon embraced new materials and technologies to produce radically innovative designs that
expressed the optimistic spirit of high-style modernism. Scandinavian designers preferred to
combine the traditional beauty of natural materials with advanced technology, giving their designs
a warm and domestic yet modern quality. Japanese designers, obviously aware of
contemporaneous developments in Western architecture and design, strove to create a balance
between traditional Asian and international modern aesthetics, while still evoking national values
with their distinctly Asian sensibility.
At the same time, in reaction to the perceived impersonality of mass production, an alternative
group of artist-designers who were interested in keeping alive the time-honored practices of handworking traditional materials emerged during the 1960s. Their one-of-a-kind objects, made with
tour-de-force virtuosity, helped elevate design to the status of art.
By the mid-1970s, a radically transformed "modern design" expressed itself through a variety of
idioms. There was a style for virtually every taste, from the bold forms and colors of Op Art—
inspired supergraphics to the refinement of Studio Movement handcraftsmanship to the pareddown industrial aesthetics of High Tech.
Source: Design, 1950–75 | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan
Museum of Art
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1950
First Modern Credit Card Introduced
First Organ Transplant
First "Peanuts" Cartoon Strip
Korean War Begins
Senator Joseph McCarthy Begins Communist Witch Hunt
U.S. President Truman Orders Construction of Hydrogen Bomb
1951
Color TV Introduced
South Africans Forced to Carry ID Cards Identifying Race
Truman Signs Peace Treaty With Japan, Officially Ending WWII
Winston Churchill Again Prime Minister of Great Britain
1952
Car Seat Belts Introduced
The Great Smog of 1952
Jacques Cousteau Discovers Ancient Greek Ship
Polio Vaccine Created
Princess Elizabeth Becomes Queen at Age 25
1953
DNA Discovered
First Playboy Magazine
Hillary and Norgay Climb Mt. Everest
Joseph Stalin Dies
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Executed for Espionage
1954
Britain Sponsors an Expedition to Search for the Abominable Snowman
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First Atomic Submarine Launched
Report Says Cigarettes Cause Cancer
Roger Bannister Breaks the Four-Minute Mile
Segregation Ruled Illegal in U.S.
1955
Disneyland Opens
Emmett Till Murdered
James Dean Dies in Car Accident
McDonald's Corporation Founded
Rosa Parks Refuses to Give Up Her Seat on a Bus
Warsaw Pact Signed
1956
Elvis Gyrates on Ed Sullivan's Show
Grace Kelly Marries Prince Rainier III of Monaco
Hungarian Revolution
Khrushchev Denounces Stalin
Suez Crisis
T.V. Remote Control Invented
Velcro Introduced 19
1957
Dr. Seuss Publishes The Cat in the Hat
European Economic Community Established
Soviet Satellite Sputnik Launches Space Age
Laika Becomes the First Living Animal to Enter Orbit
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1958
Boris Pasternak Refuses Nobel Prize
Chinese Leader Mao Zedong Launches the "Great Leap Forward"
Hope Diamond is Donated to the Smithsonian
Hula Hoops Become Popular
LEGO Toy Bricks First Introduced
NASA Founded
Peace Symbol Created
1959
Castro Becomes Dictator of Cuba
International Treaty Makes Antarctica Scientific Preserve
Kitchen Debate Between Nixon and Khrushchev
The Sound of Music Opens on Broadway
U.S. Quiz Shows Found to be Fixed
1960
Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho Released
Brazil's Capital Moves to Brand New City
First Televised Presidential Debates
Lasers Invented
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Pictures Of 1950s HomesSearch multiple engines for pictures of 1950s
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1961
Adolf Eichmann on Trial for Role in Holocaust
Bay of Pigs Invasion
Berlin Wall Built
Peace Corps Founded
Soviets Launch First Man in Space
1962
Andy Warhol Exhibits His Campbell's Soup Can
Cuban Missile Crisis
First Person Killed Trying to Cross the Berlin Wall
Marilyn Monroe Found Dead
Rachel Carson Publishes Silent Spring
1963
Betty Friedan Publishes The Feminine Mystique
JFK Assassinated
Martin Luther King Jr. Makes His "I Have a Dream" Speech
1964
Beatles Become Popular in U.S.
Cassius Clay (a.k.a. Muhammad Ali) Becomes World Heavyweight Champion
Civil Rights Act Passes in U.S.
Hasbro Launches GI Joe Action Figure
Nelson Mandela Sentenced to Life in Prison
Warren Report on JFK's Assassination Issued
1965
Japan's Bullet Train Opens
Los Angeles Riots
Malcolm X Assassinated
New York City Great Blackout
U.S. Sends Troops to Vietnam
1966
Black Panther Party Established
Mao Zedong Launches the Cultural Revolution
Mass Draft Protests in U.S.
Star Trek T.V. Series Airs
1967
Australian Prime Minister Disappears
Che Guevara Killed
First Heart Transplant
First Super Bowl
Six-Day War in the Middle East
Stalin's Daughter Defects
Three U.S. Astronauts Killed During Simulated Launch
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1968
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Martin Luther King Jr. Assassinated
My Lai Massacre
Prague Spring
Robert F. Kennedy Assassinated
Tet Offensive
1969
ARPANET, the Precursor of the Internet, Created
Charles Manson and "Family" Arrested
Neil Armstrong Becomes the First Man on the Moon
Rock-and-Roll Concert at Woodstock
Senator Edward Kennedy Leaves the Scene of an Accident
Sesame Street First Airs
Yasser Arafat Becomes Leader of the PLO
Night Creatures, 1965
Lee Krasner (American, 1908–1984)
Acrylic on paper
Source:Lee Krasner: Night Creatures (1995.595) | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Black Untitled, 1948
Willem de Kooning (American, born the Netherlands, 1904–1997)
Source:Willem de Kooning: Black Untitled (1984.613.7) | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History |
The Metropolitan Museum of Art