Introduction
Pop art is an artistic movement that began in the 1950s and reached its peak in the sixties. It started in London and New York as a wave of rebellion against the dominant forms of art and was characterized by its widespread usage of images of popular culture and consumerism. The movement aspired to narrow the existing boundaries between the fine and commercial arts by utilizing vibrant block color schemes and bold, simple, visually descriptive, and figurative language.
Pop art was the earliest postmodernist movement, which conferred equal prominence to the medium and message, which amplified the power of television and film through which most of its renowned images obtained extensive public recognition. Some of the pop culture movement’s notable and most influential artists are Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol, whose globally acclaimed artworks include Blam, Crack is Wack, and Marilyn Diptych. Although the pop art movement, which broke through the art community in the 1950s, began as a reaction against the status quo, its highly intellectual and expressive styles limited its appeal to mainstream artistry lovers.
Name of Art Movement, Relevant Dates, and Geographic Locations
The popular art movement, commonly known as pop art, was an artistic wave that emerged and grew in the postwar environment of the 1950s and lasted until the 1apse of the subsequent decade. It started in the United States and Britain as the public in the two countries began appreciating materialism, consumerism, and the prevailing optimism (Sichel 85). The refreshing introduction of identifiable imagery drawn from popular culture and media was the most defining feature of the movement. Artists started to celebrate commonplace objects and elevated experiences to the level of fine art.
Origins and Historical Overview of Pop Art Movement
Pop art is an artistic movement that arose in Britain and United States in the 1950s and reached its peak in the 1960s. It was inspired by the commercial and popular culture in the western world and commenced as a revolt against the conventional and elitist forms of artistry (Shanes 9). Pop art was the first postmodernist wave characterized by imageries of popular culture and consumerism in a ‘decade which saw recovery from war and a growing sense of materialistic well-being’ (Shanes 9).
In Britain, the Independent Group, an informal club of artists, spotted the window of opportunity presented by the cultural struggles in England and sought to exploit the incidental openings. Emerging currents pushed some artists to start assimilating the realities of the moment into their artwork while progressively departing from the rigidity and norms of mainstream art. For instance, de Silva contends that despite the booming mass entertainment and consumerism, the prevailing art, Abstract Expressionism, denied its reality and retreated to its elitist and intellectual sphere (180). Pop art emerged in Britain and United States in the 1950s and reached its highest point in the 1960s.
Revolt Against Dominant Art
Similar to almost all significant art styles, pop art started as a rebellion against the status quo. At the time, the dominant artistic movement was Abstract Expressionism, a painterly non-figurative version of art criticized for its inability to connect with the general public or many artists. Hajali contends that this form of art valued freedom and personal expression, and increasingly became abstract and expressive, which effectively created an opportunity for more figurative and socially connective artistry (311). Additionally, pop art sought to obscure the divide between the fine and commercial arts by using vibrant block color schemes and sarcastic and satirical elements (Wicaksono and Juwariya 56).
In this regard, pop art was inspired by the growing dominance of mass culture and capitalist consumerism in postwar society (Harrison 6). Moreover, the popular movement artwork integrated bold, simple, visually descriptive, and highly figurative language to emphasize specific elements of contemporary culture. In this regard, the pop wave was a departure from the styles of art that were taught in schools and exhibited in museums since they did not represent the real world.
Coincidence with Post-War Consumerism
Pop artists defied conventional artistic standards and believed that art could borrow from any source. According to Ohrner, Abstract Expressionism ‘did not provide models for understanding the nature of local situations’ due to its highly intellectual and elitist form (12). Consequently, the pop art style was viewed as a remarkable return to the representational artistic era, which depicted the visual world using imageries drawn from commonplace and recognizable objects in mass media, production, and culture. Getlein notes that the pop art movement entailed the creation of visually meaningful artwork that ‘allows us to experience them as art (51).
For instance, Cork describes Roy Lichtenstein’s art as disruptive since it elevated the status of comics into an art form (41). In this regard, the utilization of the daily experiences and objects of art enhanced people’s connection to artistic works and evoked a desire to adopt the mass consumption lifestyle.
As the post-war world was characterized by industrialization, growing optimism of materialistic well-being and prosperity fueled a new lifestyle that promoted leisure and consumption. The emerging art viewed the visual language of advertising and famous brands as an inspiration for the creation of artwork that could not be found in museums and galleries. This was perfectly represented by people’s everyday lives and experiences. For instance, Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup Cans comprised 32 canvasses of visually similar but different variations of the product, illustrated the mass-produced commodity now on walls as fine art. Therefore, pop art coincided with such other dominant forces as consumerism, which was figuratively displayed as the vision of good life.
Cultural and Societal Factors Influential to the Development of Pop Art Movement
Pop art’s rapid growth and development are partly attributable to its integration of the spirit of the time through the adoption of the prevailing cultural and societal factors. For instance, in the 1950s, societies embraced consumerism, and the conventional cultural patterns started facing rebellion, paving the way for a new artistic movement. This is illustrated by the opposition to Abstract Expressionism, a phenomenon which sought to make art representational of the real world. According to Trowell, the pop art wave cannot be disentangled from the cultural dynamics which prevailed in the United States and Britain at the time, including drawing inspiration from everyday experiences (331). In this regard, the new wave integrated imageries from popular culture, which was also a strategy to dimmish the distinction between the high and low culture in arts.
Visual and Thematic Overview
Pop art was characterized by its extensive usage of identifiable and recognizable imageries from icons and images of popular media and products. It also integrated vibrant, bold, and bright colors and applied such innovative techniques as printmaking processes, which enabled quick reproduction of artwork in large quantities. For instance, Roy Lichtenstein’s Blam combines such brilliant colors as red, yellow, and blue. The choice of colors was inspired by the pursuit of ‘popularity and popular interests, emphasizing novelty and uniqueness’ (Qian and Zheng 1). Pop art is also depicted by relying on satire and irony to make expressive statements about current events, challenge the status quo, and deride fads. The dominant themes include materialism, optimism, rebellion, affluence, leisure, and consumerism, which were widespread in postwar society.
Influential Artists in the Pop Culture Movement
Some of the most influential artists of the Pop Art movement include Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, and Roy Lichtenstein. Marilyn Diptych, an artistic impression of the movie star, is one of the most acclaimed and monumental works of Warhol and is evocative of the relationship between the actor’s life and death. Lichtenstein’s Blam was an artistic impression of war imagery depicting a pilot ejecting from an exploding plane. Keith Haring’s Crack is Wack is a fanciful activistic mural through which he expressed frustration with the government’s ineffectiveness in addressing drugs and addiction in New York City.
Conclusion
The pop art movement started in Britain and the United States in the 1950s and reached its peak in the 1960s. It grew with postwar consumerism and represented a departure from the dominant Abstract Expressionism art style. The pop culture wave rapidly gained traction by introducing identifiable and recognizable imageries from commonplace objects and everyday experiences. It emerged as a rebellion against the prevailing artistic styles, which were deemed abstract, intellectual, and highly elitist. The movement was characterized by the extensive use of recognizable imagery, vibrant color schemes, and irony and satire, as seen through the works of such influential artists as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Keith Haring. The dominant themes of the artistic era include consumerism, leisure, affluence, materialism, optimism, and rebellion.
Works Cited
Cork, Richard. “Comic Appeal.” New Statesman, vol. 133, no. 4678, 2004, pp. 41−43.
de Silva, Nushelle. “The Long Front of Culture: The Independent Group and Exhibition Design.” Journal of Design History, vol. 34, no. 2, 2021, pp. 180−181.
Getlein, Mark. Living with Art. 11th. Ed., McGraw Hill, 2015.
Hajali, Sahar. “Abstract Expressionism: A Case Study on Jackson Pollock’s Works.” Journal of History Culture and Art Research, vol. 5, no. 4, 2017, pp. 311−320.
Harrison, Sylvia. Pop Art and the Origins of Post Modernism. Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Ohrner, Annika. Art in Transfer in the Era of Pop: Curatorial Practices and Transnational Strategies. Sodertorn University, 2017.
Qian, Ji., and Jiayu Zheng. “The Color Application of the Representative Pop Art in Modern Design – Illustrated by the Case of MAOS Design.” MATEC Web of Conferences, vol. 176, 2018, pp. 1−5.
Shanes, Eric. The Pop Art Tradition. Parkstone Press, 2006.
Sichel, Jennifer. “What is Pop Art?’ A Revised Transcript of Gene Swenson’s 1963 Interview with Andy Warhol.” Oxford Art Journal, vol. 41, no. 1, 2018, pp. 85−100.
Trowell, Ian. “Collision, Collusion, and Coincidence: Pop Art’s Fairground Parallel.” Visual Culture in Britain, vol. 17, no. 3, 2016, pp. 329−350.
Wicaksono, Singgih Prio and Anik Juwariyah. “The Visual Language of Consumerism in Contemporary Artworks.” Journal of Urban Society’s Arts, vol. 6, no. 1, 2019, pp. 56−62.