If you know me well, you will know I love art history. During my time at university, art history was a tough course and I came out with a B+. Not bad for being out of school for more than a quarter century. I feel there is always more to learn about art history. So I thought, in my progress to continiue learning, I would write about something I find interesting and I am passionate about.
Pop Art from America in the1960’s. You can see the influence of pop art as seen in my work of the two paintings of bicycles, Bicycle I and Bicycle II. The influence of advertising and pop culture was significant in the work of american pop artists, such as Andy Warhol. Warhol felt that art of the past took understanding and demanded thought. He thought with pop art it should be immediate like advertising and immediacy of celebrity influence. After Marilyn Monroe‘s death, Andy Warhol made , “Marilyn Diptych”.
In making the silkscreen print, Warhol used a well known image of Marilyn. Transfering her likeness, he embellishes her red lips, bleach blond hair and heavy blue eye shadow. Making her look like caricature of herself. I think he was playing off on the over sexualization of Marilyn and women of that time. I do like this artwork with the brilliant colours in contast to the scraped, scrubby looking black and white on the right. The roughness of the black and white makes me think how we use up celebrity, like they are not real people. In a way, was Warhol saying this is the price for fame and celebrity? There is thinking that Warhol made the bright gold background to represent how she was an icon, much like the icons of the Orthodox religions from the fifteenth century. I can see this similarity.
This image has become iconic, I think any image on Marilyn would have become iconic from that time. It is interesting that women have been imitating the “Marilyn” look since her time and I believe women will continue to do so.