The Pop Art movement transformed the definition of art. It was once something strictly confined behind a pane of glass - something you could not touch, something far removed from your daily life.
However, the Pop Artists revolutionized the nature of art itself. They re-examined the quotidian with cool contemplation and measured distance, crafting beauty and meaning from the familiar, according to the Oxford Dictionary of Art. Advertising, the hunter green hood of your new Ford and celebrities became subjects, transformed through color and composition into jarring images, at once immediate and foreign.
The ideas behind the movement first emerged in London in the 1950s as contemporary artists began contemplating the images of mass media and consumer culture with ironic distance. Richard Hamilton, one of the original Pop Art visionaries, defined the art form in 1957 as "Transient (short term solution); Expendable (easily forgotten); . . . Glamorous; and Big Business," charged key words that, taken out of context, could also describe the Sunday morning Target circular. Changing the expected composition of mass images, these original pop artists commented on the messages contained in advertising, especially their subvert sexual connotations, according to the Oxford Dictionary of Art.
The philosophy of Pop Art emerged independently in America in the 1950s, contrasting sharply with its British counterpart with a more ambiguous take on its subject matter. Further, the American version of the art form relied more heavily on modern technology, such as the famous silk-screened technique of Andy Warhol's work, the Oxford Dictionary of Art says.
One of the first American pop artists, Jasper Johns, transformed the composition of familiar images such as flags, maps and targets. He painted these subjects with abstract expressionist style to reconsider their context and artistic possibility. His contemporary, Robert Rauschenberg, contemplated his immediate milieu for artistic and philosophical merit, best seen in his "Monogram" (1955), a rough composition of found objects. Seeing the common as subject matter requires a detachment from your daily environment, and consequently what should be familiar images become incredibly powerful and almost haunting.
Andy Warhol, the artist most often associated with the movement, created silk-screened icons of Hollywood starlets, such as "The Marilyn Diptych" (1962). His work uses repetition and bold, flatly applied color to reconsider the repetition of advertising and celebrity worship. Consequently, his images contemplate the psychological residue of pop culture: What's left when you see the same image over and over again? In contrast, his contemporary Roy Lichtenstein used comic strips where Warhol used celebrities to craft vibrant and immense melodramas.
Pop into the east building of the National Gallery of Art, located on the National Mall between Third and Seventh streets on Constitution Avenue, to see an extensive collection of Pop Art in the District. Seeing the works up close will make you re-examine the images you see every day and grapple with the definition of art itself.
