Pop Art is an art movement that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States during the mid-1950s. The movement is defined by its use of imagery and techniques from popular and mass culture. Pop Art incorporated elements from advertising, comic books, product packaging, and other mundane cultural objects. Artists challenged traditional fine art by blurring the line between commercial and high art.
The term "Pop Art," a shortened version of "Popular Art," was coined by art critic Lawrence Alloway in 1958. Alloway used the term to describe paintings that celebrated post-war consumerism. The movement is characterized by its bright, saturated colors, bold outlines, and the use of mechanical printing techniques like Ben-Day dots, which mimic commercial printing processes. Key motifs include portraits of celebrities, everyday household items, and images from mass media, often rendered in a straightforward, graphic style.
Pop Art emerged as a reaction against the seriousness of Abstract Expressionism, which was the dominant artistic movement at the time. Pop artists felt that Abstract Expressionism was overly intellectual and detached from everyday life. They sought to create art that was accessible and relatable to the masses. Artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein used irony and humor to critique and celebrate consumerist culture simultaneously. The movement's popularity began to wane in the early 1970s, though its influence on subsequent art forms remains.
Visuals[]
The visuals of Pop art are bright and colorful, emphasizing fun as opposed to the strictness of Abstract Expressionist Art. Pop art is characterized by vibrant, bright colors. The primary colors red, yellow, and blue appeared prominently in many famous works, particularly in Roy Lichtenstein’s body of work.
Pop art utilized images and icons from popular media and products. This included commercial items like soup cans, road signs, photos of celebrities, newspapers, and other items popular in the commercial world, including brand names and logos.
Humor was one of the main components of Pop art. Artists used the subject matter to make a statement about current events, poke fun at fads, and challenge the status quo.
Related Movements[]
Neo-Pop[]
Neo-Pop, also called New Pop, was a broad postmodern art movement that surged in the 1980s and 1990s. It is a resurgent, evolved and modern version of the ideas of Pop Art artists from the 50s, capturing some of its commercial ideas and Kitsch aspects.
Fashion[]
Although Pop art was originally an artistic movement, its ideas and aesthetics inspired many fashion designs. A notable piece of Pop art fashion is The Souper Dress, manufactured by Campbell Soup and inspired by Andy Warhol's art. Pop art themed fashion included many key motifs of pop art: saturated colors, imagery of every day objects or celebrities, bold lines and even polka dot patterns. Pop art themed clothes are still produced today, and can often be found on sites such as Etsy and Redbubble.
Gallery[]
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