Christine Relos
December 15, 2011
Carpenter
American Art
Pop Art Revolution
Artist, cinematographer, and revolutionary Andrew Warhol, who is known to the world as Andy Warhol, revolutionizes the way America views art. Born August 6, 1928, Warhol had started a new movement of art known as Pop Art with his copies of colorfully altered photographs of famous figures. As his popularity grew more into the world, he was offered to create the logo to Campbell’s which is still being used up to this day since 1962. The artist dies at the age of 58 on February 22, 1989 at 6:32a.m in New York Hospital from cardiac arrhythmia due to a failed surgery to his gull bladder. His family sues the hospital believing that his death was due to water intoxication.
In his final composition of the two dimension “Marilyn” (Figure 3) in the 1960s, which showed many different colors schemes of Marilyn Monroe. This pieces was just basically a photograph of Monroe which Warhol proceeded to change the color up and make it pop out to the audience more. Warhol does not put the colors in the lines. The colors almost seem pasted in. The shapes of where the colors end are very defined. The colors are always bright and popping and always using the same color without going a shade lighter or darker. He sticks to the same exact color throughout the shape the being formed in a certain area of the photograph. He does this to present to the audience that colors can affect the mood of any picture no matter what images were on it. Because he constantly experimented with different, colliding colors, there was not really a specific lighting for any of his works. If the colors were cool colors, it would portray either a calm or saddening mood to the piece. However, when Warhol uses warm colors, his art had a maddening, happy, or energetic feel to it. The Marilyn and all his other altered photographs showed only as much depth as the original did, though sometimes the colors would decrease the depth of some aspects of the work. In Marilyn, the audience and identify Monroe’s hair as curly, but were more struck by how blonde she was. You see the pattern of her hair and how it twirls, but the color is so dynamic, you don’t focus on texture as much. I believe that Andy Warhol really wanted to show the world that they should leave all the realism to the Renaissance, Enlightenment and anything before or during the 19th century and focus on the new century art; Pop Art. The statement he tries to portray that it is out with the old and in with the new; brighter colors create more vivid pictures and really capture the eyes of the audience. He can also express different types of emotions through the different color schemes he uses with all the different versions of Marilyn, the colors all being polymer paint. During Warhol’s life, he’s experienced so much things you’d expect an artist to experience; drugs, alcohol, sex, and more. He believes this life style opened his eyes to a lot more emotions and strong feelings he wanted to show the world through his art work. He made such a simple piece of time into an artistic shot. Because of all the hallucinogenic he consumed in his career, he aways had a really good, relaxing, life-altering high that caused him to feel in ecstasy. This feeling was so special to Warhol, he used his assorted art works to try to create an artificial depiction of the highs he would go through and he wants others to feel the happiness and invincible feeling he says he has. Everything else, except the colors texture, was never altered. It was the still the same photography, with the same plan, the same design, the same facial expression and everything, I believe this was a way for Warhol to tell the world that any image can be a great images, it is just the way how you present it to the viewers that will make an impact on society. He has this belief not only as an artist, but as a cinematographer, director, and screenplay writer. He believed an script has the potential to be the greatest film ever, but it was all up to the director to present it in a way that explores all aspects of the production. With art, he felt like every single thing you did to a photograph could cause it to have a totally different impact on some then if you did it differently. He experimented with different art styles to see which one would really influence the era of art.
In his early career, Warhol created a lot of advertisement images for many companies such as Macintosh, Pepsi, Paramount, Absolut Vodka, Ford cars and many more. Often, Warhol often liked creating images of his favorite everyday things. This lead him to create the Campbell’s Soup logo (Figure 4). A quote from a dear friend of Warhol says: “ ‘I knew Andy very well. The reason why he painted soup cans is that he liked soup’ — Robert Indiana”.(www.warholstars.org) Only the things Andy was passionate about really drove him to making a name for it. The line that divides the white and the red backgrounds are very straight and defined while on the top end of the can, a white line circles the red half of the image and a red line circles the white background on the opposite end. Warhol only really put four colors into the logo: red, white, black, and a dirty gold. These simple colors looked surprisingly well together and really let the logo stand out. Besides the text, the only images in the can are top red rectangle, the bottom white one, a dirty gold center in the very center and little family heir-loom like images right above the red line on the bottom. There really is no dimension to the logo but the lighting appears bright. The texture is just flat like any other logo with no depth. However, the balance of whats on each colored background makes the company name and the label stand out. The Campbell’s name is written in s cursive white fount with a black boarder to really bring it out where as the condensed under it is just in regular, smaller letters and not bolded. On the white rectangle, the word tomato is written in a bold red font while soup is in a much bigger black font and bordered with gold to give more emphasis. This was to give the consumer a sense the Campbell’s soup was just simple, homey soup that’s great for the family and could for you. Like what Robert Indiana had said about Warhol’s creation on the Campbell’s soup can, Warhol only did it because he liked soup. He was one of those artist that really needed to be inspired by his own personal interest to make something that would really appeal to the world. Following this piece came more and more advertisements for Campbell’s Soup. A quote from critic Marcel Duchamp reads: “If you take a Campbell Soup Can and repeat it fifty times, you are not interested in the retinal image. What interests you us the concept that wants to put fifty Campbell Soup Cans on a canvas”.(www.warholstars.org) In a way, Warhol brought about a modernized Barococo era. If one Campbell’s soup can is good, fifty is better as seen on one of his advertisements that have rows and rows of soup cans in different colors that make up the american flag. Just like his creation of Marilyn, he created many different versions of the Campbell’s soup cans with many different colors that affect the tone and the mood of the image. The colors ranged from brilliant, bright, hot colors such as red, orange and yellow, dark and gloomy cool colors like blue, green, and purple, to bold neon colors. The color schemes to the different versions of the Campbell’s Soup can logo were either cool, warm, neon, or a collaboration of all of them. After experimenting with different colors, he started using many different color schemes in one image. This made the picture even more dynamic and vibrant. He then started using different textures towards his images. In one of his works, he takes a picture of a stack of various Campbell’s Soup cans. On top of that are other common house hold objects that all clump together to create a self portrait of himself. This really showed the world that Warhol had the capability to make such a common, taken for granted item and make a big name for it. Before, Campbell’s was just a regular brand of soup sitting on the aisle of the grocery stores, now, Andy Warhol has created a label for Campbell’s that is known and easily recognized through out the country. Another label he created was the “Small Torn Campbell’s Soup Can”. I was a can but the label appears to be ripped and torn in the front. This portrays a damage in the low middle class and the amount of consumerism that goes on in our nation. The damage represents that all our middle class suffers from how our economy treats the upper class in comparison. This also represents how the people of the United States are running on consumerism and how this affects everyone globally.
While Warhol really brought a popularity to Pop Art, more artists before and after also played around with the idea. In Collage by Chard Hamilton by Richard Hamilton (Figure 2), the artist uses a plain, regular, empty room as the background then Hamilton cuts and pastes different images to create more of a scene in the piece that really tell what the room is like, who the owners are and what they are like. Warhol was they type to just use one image and alter the pictures with many different colors where as Hamilton does not necessarily alter the image, but add to it. Warhol sets the mood and story to a picture through the dynamic colors he uses while Hamilton finds different images, with no modifications besides cropping, and pastes them on to really get sense of the room and the story behind it. When Warhol made different versions of an image, he’d put all those different versions into one canvas so the audience can see the difference of all the images where as Hamilton would treat each of the versions of a room as an individual work. It is almost like looking through the same apartment and the different people that have owned the apartment over time. One picture can have one generation the room can be occupied by a young, attractive, sexual couple with many different fetishes and have interest in the world of the fine arts, then the same picture of the same room with a different generation can three female, artsy roommates with different positions of furniture but still using the same room. The room also shows the intelligence of the two girls with the vast shapes and lines in the background. However, Hamilton and Warhol’s art styles are very similar. First of all, both of these artists were creating their artworks during the Pop Art era. Both artist used an image and affected the mood and tone in some way. Their work showed that the the any simple, dull image can become a dynamic, fruitful image with some sort of editing as well as that you can make the audience have a different feeling toward the image by the modifications you do to the original image whether it be a change in color and/or color scheme, or pasting different images that really let the audience know what is going on in the image and what the image represent. Also another common feature that both don’t completely resemble reality, but not like a cartoon. In Marilyn, Warhol would make Monroe’s skin different colors that does not look like any human can obtain that sort of look she has while Hamilton is using different images to create his art. Some are black and white, some have fading colors, and some are just regular photographs taken by a camera. These Pop Art revolutionaries also used their art to commemorate the middle class. They portray the many different kinds of people that make up this class and have you sympathize with the art work.
Another Pop Art artist by the name of Roy Lichtenstein focused more on his own designs rather then taking an original picture and editing it. Influenced by the art in his favorite childhood comics and his love for action and thrillers, Lichtenstein’s art not only helped open the world of Pop Art, but influenced the many graphic novelist of the generation (Figure 1). Unlike Warhol, Lichtenstein focused on his own art wok rather then altering someone else’s. This way, he can create a picture that really suites what he wants to show the viewers of the artwork. With making his own art also came the advantage of not having to constantly experiment with different colors or images. The artist can also make his character express the exact expression he wants his audience to see. He can also make the characters have the exact appearance he wants them to have as to Warhol and Hamilton’s work where they had to take time to really play around with color scheme, texture, placing and finding the right images to put to make the audience understand their image. Unlike the other Pop Art revolutionaries, Lichtenstein’s art was very graphic novel like and nothing like a real person where as Warhol has images of actual celebrities, people, and objects. Like Warhol, Lichtenstein use very bright colors to portray mood of the characters and/or the mood of the scene. He affects character personalities by using colors that depict the character while the background affects the mood of the scene where a sad, dramatic scene has a cool colored background and a happy, energetic scene will have a warm color background. The two artist are also alike because both had a representation of the middle class. Lichtenstein uses his comic strips to depict the many different problems in life any middle class citizen has to go through whether its the drama to to their work sand economy life, or the personal relationship problems they might have with their lovers, friends, or family.
The Pop Art era really let people express themselves and how their felt society was treating them. The works of Warhol really impacted not only the world of the middle class, but the art world. His art really allowed the Pop Art era to take of and spread inspiring more artist to continue this kind of work and express how they felt.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Bibliography
Comenas, Gary. www.warholstars.org
Dillenberger, Jane Daggett. The Religious Art of Andy Warhol. 128 pp. New York: Continuum, 1998.
Koestenbaum, Wayne. Andy Warhol. 224 pp. New York: Viking Penguin, A Lipper/Viking Book, 2001.
Meyer-Hermann, Eva, editor. Andy Warhol: A Guide to 706 Items in 2 Hours 56 Minutes. 256 pp. Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2007.
Pratt, Alan R., ed. The Critical Response to Andy Warhol. 306 pp. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997.
Warhol, Andy. America. Unpaginated. New York: Harper & Row, 1985.
Warhol, Andy. The Andy Warhol Diaries. Edited by Pat Hackett. 839 pp. New York: Warner Books, 1989.
Who Is Andy Warhol? Edited by Colin MacCabe, Mark Francis and Peter Wollen. 162 pp. London: British Film Institute and Pittsburgh: The Andy Warhol Museum, 1997.