Monday, January 19, 2015

Pow!

"It was hard to get a painting that was despicable enough so that no one would hang it - everybody was hanging everything. It was almost acceptable to hang a dripping paint rag, everybody was accustomed to this. The one thing everybody hated was commercial art; apparently they didn't hate that enough either." ~ Roy Lichtenstein


You have to, at the very least, enlarge this image to get the full effect. But the idea is pretty fascinating. Comic book panels are storytelling building blocks. The original which Lichtenstein used for a model, in much the same way you might base a new painting or print on a classic Rembrandt, would have been in the middle of something. The middle of a fight scene, most likely, although the next panel might have shifted the scene to another location. But here the text, the fist, and the off-balance half a head exist in a little world of their own. You take it or you leave it.

2 comments:

susan said...

I love that quote by Lichtenstein. His cynical critique of the NY art scene is very telling. I like the painting but, in general, his work is an acquired taste (one I never totally acquired).

Ben said...

I guess acquired tastes are like that. If you do acquire them you'll be hooked, but that's an if. But yeah, I imagine living and working in an art metropolis like that would lead to becoming jaded.