Pop Art

Pop art definition and history 

Pop art was a creative and cultural movement that started prior to the Second World War. Before the movement started, Abstract expressionism was the common form of art, which came across as ‘over intense’.  The pop art movement started as a revolt against the traditional art in the United Kingdom in the min 1950’s and the United States in the late 1950’s as a result of a ‘consumer boom’. A large range of artists and thinkers used concepts and themes ranging from comics, products to current advertising, to express their optimism and make their art appeal to a mass audience.  As pop music which was symbolised by Elvis Presley and The Beatles, occurred at the same time as pop art, the popularity of the pop culture started to increase, which changed the art industry. 

In terms of style, Pop art came across as hostile, dynamic and aggressive. Although each country has it’s own interpretation of the art, the characteristic that made them had in common is they contain visual elements of the mass culture. Having this feature makes the name relevant because the word ‘pop art’ means 'return to popular culture'.

As computers were not

Pop art artist and an detailed analysis on existing design work

Artist

• Andy Warhol
• Richard Hamilton 
• Jasper John 
• Roy Lichtenstein

Andy Warhol products:

I decided to analyse strong images of pop art, which one them is Campbell's soup. 

Campbells Soup

This is a example of my one of my favorite Andy Warhol's extracts of art that featured a drawing of a very popular item in the sixties and seventies. The main focal point for this drawing is the colour scheme, the drawing style and the brand. Campbell's is a very popular brand of soup and the viewer would be able to recognise the package due to the red and the logo. 

In my opinion, the colour red in this image represents the colour of a tomato soup, which comes across as aggressive because this colour is considered powerful.  Featuring big contrast of colours forces the viewer to shift and maintain their attention to the word 'Campbell'. Having this colour also results in the words 'Campbell's' and 'condensed' being legible. The colour white represents the bowl where the soup goes into, making it relevant. The scale of the tin is set to large because the effect of promoting a product would not being achieved if it was very small. 

As for the style, the outlines of the tin are straight, making it very clean. This makes an illusion that the painting is created by a machine. Certain areas of the tin, such as the top, feature shading, which makes it dynamic. 

Overall the shading and the colour schemes convey an optimistic and creative mood due to the product having different contrast of colours. Due to the image not featuring other forms of imagery in the background, it looks empty. From people who were born in the sixties, this may come across as nostalgic because this object is associated with the mid ninth century.  The typography would most likely remain in people's memories  because the thick serif text from the word 'soup' and the curly, italic style font used for the Campbell makes this image look vintage.

Andy Warhol: Coca Cola

Like Campell's soup, Andy Warhol also produced other pieces of pop art that showed trendy products in the sixties. Coca Cola was still the largest commercial drink company in the world. It was in this period where the item was available to people from all social backgrounds through advertising and the shop

In terms of composition, the image features Coca Cola bottles posited next to each other, which makes the image look busy. What this image is conveying is that all Cokes are the same and good, which means that there is good quality is available whether the person is poor or not. This results in the art work promoting equality for all consumers and reaching to the everyday audience in the world, which is one of pop art's main principles. 

In terms of the design, it is the red Coca Cola sign and design of the bottle that are the most recognisable objects in the advert. Just like Campbell's soup, the product name are the main focal point due to the typography and the the popularity of the brand. Although the font design looks traditional, having the more sophisticated design elements, like the curve, makes the typography blend with the imagery.

 As for the skill, it must take precise colouring to make the image look like a vector drawing. Compared to the shadowing on the tin, hand drawn bottles look more rough and three dimensional due to the green lighting effect. In order to draw the items, Andy most likely had used screen printing to get the accurate shape and the shadowing. As this technique is hard to master and anything can go wrong, it could take at least a two weeks to complete. 

 

Richard Hamilton's Products Interior 2

Richard Hamilton's Interior 2 features a lady staring at the viewer in a living room with unusual objects. This painting's main focus point is the woman and the colourful items, such as the red chair surrounding her. The woman is completely black and white which makes her stand out from the rest of the environment. What would most likely throw the audience out is that the woman staring right out straight to them, like the Mona Lisa. Due to the perspective of where the woman is standing, the size of the image is perfect because if she was large, it would prevent the likes of me getting hooked to looking at the background imagery. 

The living room features a mixture of primary and secondary colours. The painting uses brown to give a big contrast between the the wall, the floor and the objects. Unlike Andy Warhol, textures are relied to make the image come across as busy, detailed and strange. As a result, the montage effect makes a big impact and enables the image to be visually interesting. The image features a wide camera view because the elements and walls in the room are distorted. Having walls not joining together suggests that this room is in fact a studio. In addition it uses lighting effects to indicate that there are multiple light resources, which reinforces the point of the room being fake.

As this image features textures and colours, the techniques includes sticking textures, like paper with a wood picture and images. Paint brushes may have been used to create the swirl on the blue wall and the multi-coloured painting.

Overall, the image conveys very strange and disturbing feelings due to the camera perspective and the distorted effects. The use of textures makes it look rough and hostile which is achieved by mixing solid colours and materials, such as wood. Due to the image including furniture from the nineteen fifties, it is considered as pop art.

Unlike Andy Warhol, Richard used already existing materials like textures and paper to create this image. Many of the walls feature textures like wood to make the visual language look captivating. 

Reference that helped me with my research

http://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/pop-art

http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/art_movements/pop_art.htm

http://speckyboy.com/2012/01/16/20-things-you-didn%E2%80%99t-know-about-pop-art-graphic-design/

References for the images:

http://artobserved.com/2011/08/go-see-los-angeles-andy-warhols-campbells-soup-cans-at-the-museum-of-contemporary-art-through-september-19th-2011/
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hamilton-interior-p04250
http://www.adbranch.com/andy-warhols-coca-cola-paintings/
http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/andy-warhol/elvis-presley 
http://www.serpentinegallery.org/2010/04/richard_hamilton23_february_18.html
http://www.artfund.org/what-to-see/exhibitions/2013/02/21/lichtenstein-a-retrospective
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hamilton-interior-ii-t00912