Two of the most prominent art movements that dominated the twentieth century include Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. Pop Art is popular for basing the central themes of artistic works on relatable objects and images like cars, soda cans, electric appliances, cartoon strips, among artistic pieces. On the other hand, Abstract Expressionism includes minimal representation of places, people, or objects. The focus is to create spontaneous and subconscious expressions with particular interests on the medium itself. The subject under this movement is underrepresented. That is, artistic pieces do not represent reality in the physical world.
Pop Art, though easily and continually disregarded as overly commercial, anti-aesthetic, vulgar, and sensationalized, it emerged as a strong provocateur to historical, artistic movements and provided guidelines for future art movements. Pop Art is deeply rooted in the tradition of realism, an aesthetic that challenged the idealization of subject matter in favor of relatable subject matter drawn from everyday items in daily lives. The focus of Pop Artists is the object present and images on mass media such as cinema, TV, billboards, and magazines. Such models includeCoca-Cola, flowers, and cartoons among other prolific images in this era of art.
After the inception and development of Pop Art and migration from the traditional views, the new crop of artists began looking towards popular culture and mass media as the new dimension of art. Alloway coined the word “Pop Art”describing popular culture as the sum of illustrations constructed for large audiences simultaneously. There are common similarities evidenced in the distribution and consumption trends for various mass media forms. Common mass media forms include prints, magazines, records, movies, and TV. However, popular culture increased the consumer demands forcing artists to begin portraying images in their artistic creations.
Comic paintings challenged the conformity of expressionist art by artificial creations such as Superman, Popeye, and the Man of Steel. More significant advances in the art industry saw the application of comic book subjects and techniques, machine production, and stereotyping imagery. The Superman image shows more advances in Pop Art to create humor in presentation. It also inspired the feeling of relation in human-like characteristics in the resemblances. The development of artificial creations led to an increase in digital media and fil production, one of the most famed developments of the Pop Art era.
The Coca-Cola repeated image on advertising boards is a representation of the advances of Pop Art. Pop Art occurred in many forms that shared numerous similarities throughout the movement. Some took the form of prints, silk screens, comics, and dots that shared a characteristic in their uniqueness: the use of celebrities’ icons such as Marilyn Monroe alongside commonplace objects such as Coca-Cola bottles. The advances of mass media helped artist create expression such as the repeated images of a Coca-Cola bottle independently which was impossible in previous generations.
The flower of 1964 is an expression of Pop Art. The image brings in the element of using bright and vibrant colors to create an appealing effect on the viewer. Pop artists created images of bright colors to represent romantic themes in Hollywood movies. Artists began using streams of bright, idealistic colors that identify with specific personality characteristics and strategically that every color used portrayed some symbolism such as the flower of 1964. The outstanding texture of color draws the viewer attention. Mass production was a common trend in the Pop Art movement. Artist realized the need to use easily identifiable and repeated images to promote their artworks through mass media.
Popular art continued the works of such anti-aesthetic traditions like Dadaism and realism in many ways. The repetition of one image on canvas and the pictorial images of flowers on walls create an outstanding and exciting effect. The absurd repetition of image is so captivating changes the viewers’ opinion of the subject object. Pop Art provides a new way of representing common objects giving a different view of the world and a new way of analyzing different a mass media culture.