Lichtenstein made many artworks based on the work of other artists throughout his career and they encourage us to consider the originals in a new light. Copying the work of other artists has been an important lesson for many artists throughout history.
Like Lichtenstein, the American artist Alex Katz was greatly influenced by Claude Monet and made numerous paintings in homage to him. Find out more about Alex Katz.
During his high school years Lichtenstein visited jazz clubs around East 52nd Street, Staples on 57th Street and the Apollo Theatre in Harlem and even formed his own small band with friends, playing the flute, clarinet and piano. This early enthusiasm for music fed into his pre-Pop paintings of the s, some of which depicted renditions of generic jazz musicians.
In some, he experimented with surface pattern, using his signature Benday dots, flat shapes and bold contours to create symphonic patterns of colour and light across large surfaces, as can be seen in many of his late nudes, including the collage Interior with Painting of Nude Study Other artworks took a more literal approach to the representation of music, as can be seen in his Composition screenprints dating from including Composition I , Composition II , and Composition III.
These images respond to the freedom and improvisatory nature of jazz music by allowing the musical staves to curve and loop across the page in energetic waves, setting the notes free from their usual horizontal, linear constraints. These prints allowed Lichtenstein to pay homage to his lifelong passion for music and to explore a new approach to visual composition. Many modern artists have experimented, like Lichtenstein, with the relationship between art and music. What visual devices has Lichtenstein used in his Composition prints to conjure up the sound of music?
Can you imagine the style of music his paintings are based on? Consider the ways you could use elements of flat, repeat pattern and design to convey a style of music that interests you. These could be brought together as a screenprint, drawing or painting. The American artist Bruce Nauman has often explored the ways he can incorporate music and sound into his artworks.
Find out more about Bruce Nauman. Lichtenstein explored the subject of the nude extensively, and made his first major nude painting, Artist Studio with Model in In the early s he picked up the theme again, working on a large series of paintings and prints of nudes which he continued to work on, right up until his death in His nudes saw a return to the comic book imagery of the early s, particularly paintings such as Girl with Ball Lichtenstein may also have identified himself with the ageing Picasso, and indeed a number of older male artists, who used their later years to focus on the theme of the artist and his muse as a means of exploring aspects of their own identity.
His backdrops were idealised homes, with no clutter or signs of daily life. Often his own paintings and prints appeared on the walls, or his own versions of the work of other artists he admired. Nudes were also used by Lichtenstein as a backdrop for creating more complex surface detail, as can be seen in two of his screen printed works, Nude Reading and Two Nudes Both are part of a series of nine which demonstrate a more experimental use of Benday dots.
To produce these screenprints the artist used hand cut stencils with small irregularities, echoing the less uniform nature of his early work. While the Benday dots do create areas of light and shadow, instead of simply following the surface of the female form they are suggestive of waves of light shimmering across the whole picture surface. It is as if we are observing these women through a lens, reflection or pane of glass, thus emphasising the voyeuristic role of the viewer, who observes women in quiet, intimate scenes.
In Two Nudes the voyeuristic content is further emphasised by the open window in the background, a recognised symbol for sexual availability. Like many of his late nude works these prints are large in scale — many of his paintings took on cinematic proportions — forcing viewers to see a complex screen of surface pattern before taking in the whole scene.
What different art historical themes did he explore in these works? Explore the ways you could make this drawing your own, as Lichtenstein did, through line, colour and surface. The American photographer Francesca Woodman often used her own naked body as a starting point for dramatic, atmospheric images, set in a variety of interiors. Find out more about Francesca Woodman. Lichtenstein was fascinated by reflections and experimented with the ways they could be represented in his paintings and prints from the mids onwards.
One of his earliest examples is the oil painting In the Car , which used reflections on glass as a key component in the composition.
They act as a way of creating both distance and connection between the viewer and the subject, of describing speed and movement in the car and represent the psychological relationship between the protagonists, captured in a fleeting moment.
The mirror also enabled him to abstract his subject. Lichtenstein also used a mirror while working in his studio as a visual device for detecting any imperfections or flaws in his paintings, picking up on a traditional Renaissance technique. Between and he went one step further, creating close to fifty paintings based on reproductions of mirrors he found in a brochure, such as Mirror No. He was fascinated by the parallels that could be found between the mirror image and the printed image: both created a distanced version of reality which was one step away from first-hand experience.
Reflections: Art , is a reworking of his painting Art , originally made in which simply used the word as a motif. In the more recent painting the word has been partially obscured by bands of white containing Benday dots, as if seen behind a pane of glass.
The obscured images he worked on in his Reflections phase were often appropriated from his own past paintings, or new comic book sources. This series could be read as a wry reference to the Pop artists who quoted and re-used everyday images, and even an acknowledgement that his own work had now become part of popular culture. Lichtenstein made use of reflections in a variety of ways throughout his career. In his later paintings they allowed him to revisit his paintings from the past in a new way.
Why do you think he chose to make revised versions of his older paintings? How do the reflections allow us to see them in a new light? Consider the ways you could make a drawing or painting that incorporated reflections in some way, in a mirror, a pane of glass or a reflective object. The German artist Gerhard Richter has often made use of mirrors, reflections and reflective surfaces in his artworks.
Find out more about Gerhard Richter. Lichtenstein discovered the power of text in visual art in the early s, when he began reproducing comic strip frames into large format oil paintings. He was drawn to the combinations in comic books between verbal and visual language which had rarely been explored by visual artists before the Pop Art era; for Lichtenstein text and image together broke down well established boundaries between high and low art forms.
Bellamy The title made reference to Dick Bellamy, a well-known talent spotter in the New York gallery scene. In artworks such as We Rose up Slowly a split panel composition between text and image is explored to create a shared narrative between two characters. Lichtenstein also used text to describe scenes which extend beyond the edges of the painting.
To shine more light on the source material behind Lichtenstein's work, comics enthusiast David Barsalou has spent more than three decades painstakingly tracking down the original strips that the artist painted after in a project called " Deconstructing Roy Lichtenstein. A more personal comment on Lichtenstein's relationship with the comics industry comes from veteran artist Russ Heath, the creator of the original comic panel that Lichtenstein used in his famous painting " Whaam!
Now semi-retired and living on a "fixed income," Heath says he survives with the help of the " Hero Initiative ," a charity that supports comic creators in need.
The large-scale sculpture House I plays with perspective and illusion: depending on where the viewer stands, he or she will see the building's corner appear to move forward or backward within space.
Despite Lichtenstein's typical use of flat colors and the fact that this sculpture is really a flat piece of metal, the structure's design lends a sense of volume. He produced several House sculptures, all of which can be connected to Lichtenstein's interest in the interiors of buildings, a subject he visited most explicitly in his later work.
Content compiled and written by Rachel Gershman. Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors. The Art Story. But, in my hands, the brushstroke becomes a depiction of grand gesture. So the contradiction between what I'm portraying and how I am portraying it is sharp. The brushstroke became very important for my work. Summary of Roy Lichtenstein Roy Lichtenstein was one of the first American Pop artists to achieve widespread renown, and he became a lightning rod for criticism of the movement.
Read artistic legacy. Influences on Artist. Henri Matisse. Pablo Picasso. Jasper Johns. Robert Rauschenberg. Reginald Marsh. Allan Kaprow. Claes Oldenburg. Abstract Expressionism. Keith Haring. Damien Hirst. Jeff Koons. Takashi Murakami. Andy Warhol. Frederic Tuten. Pop Art.
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