Mini-Research Project: Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein. (American, 1923-1997). Drowning Girl. 1963. Oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas. 67 5/8 x 66 3/4" (171.6 x 169.5 cm). Philip Johnson Fund (by exchange) and gift of Mr. and Mrs. Bagley Wright.

Can you see where Lichtenstein got his inspiration?

     The artist Roy Lichtenstein became interested in the way comic books idealised the human form and figure, how although nothing about the illustration style is realistic, we as readers read the image as being realistic. He liked to take a single frame out of a comic book, simplify it and change the wording to suit the message he wished to offer to the viewer.  According to Keith Roberts, Lichtenstein's work is about the way pop art and advertisements are able to "merchandise excitement and romance as efficiently, and as cold-bloodedly, as so many nuts and bolts," (Roberts, 515).  One of the other most important and obvious decisions he made with his work (excluding this one, of course) was the use of Benday dots, which directly reference the physicality of the way they are printed and remind the viewer of the processes that the origin material went through.

Lichtenstein purposefully pulls the subject of the painting out of it's original context in order to make the viewer see the subject differently. However, I feel he made these works for the audience of the day because it is obviously a reference to a comic book that would have been popular during the time the painting was created. By far it seems that Lichtenstein's comic book scene paintings are the most popular of his works. I am sure that the average art student would never know that he created landscapes which included the use of Benday dots and abstract works as well which featured the human figure.  According to Bradford Collins, Lichtenstein simplifies and unifies the scenes from comic books so effectively that it intensifies the emotions which are being depicted (Collins, 61).  The way that Lichtenstein approaches painting the scenes from comic books very simply changes the way the viewer sees and experiences that particular frame. As a comic book reader, I often glance at the frame, read the text and move on quickly to the next, but Lichtenstein's work really makes you want to stand in front of it and look at it, taking it in, trying to imagine what these men and women could be feeling and thinking and why they might do (or not do) the things they say. In an interview from 1963, Lichtenstein appears to contradict himself when explaining what his process intends to convey: at first he implies that he uses comic books simply as another formal way of applying paint to canvas, but then at the end of the interview, he admits that the paintings "entail 'a stylistic intensification of the excitement which the subject matter has for me,'" (Collins, 61).  Part of me thinks that like many artists, Lichtenstein had an original idea of his work, and much like other artists, once people start talking about it, one must view their own work in a different way. You might create something for one purpose but end up making something that says something completely different to someone else with different experiences.

These works of art are extremely iconic and I do love Lichtenstein's work, but I learned more about his work and why he made these pieces that I had previously known. I never knew that he sort of just wanted to simplify comic book scenes because he thought they would make interesting and colorful paintings. This work is so vastly different to the rest of his work that it is almost inconsistent and incongruous with the rest of his body of work, which spans almost 30 or more years that it sort of seems strange for him to suddenly make these. The fact that these works were also completed during a very short time period and contrast with his other works so sharply is interesting to note.

Roy Lichtenstein, Landscape with Boats, c. Estate of Roy Lichtenstein. Courtesy of Gemini, G.E.L., Los Angeles

Bibiliography

About The Artist: Roy Lichtenstein
Ernst A. Busche
Grove Art Online
Oxford University Press, 2009

Who Ever Said Studying Art Would Be Easy? The Growing Cognitive Demands of Understanding Works of Art in the Information Age

Judith Smith Koroscik

Studies in Art Education , Vol. 38, No. 1 (Autumn, 1996), pp. 4-20

Published by: National Art Education Association

Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1320309

Modern Romance: Lichtenstein's Comic Book Paintings

Bradford R. Collins

American Art , Vol. 17, No. 2 (Summer, 2003), pp. 60-85

Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3109436

Roy Lichtenstein and the Comic Strip

Albert Boime

Art Journal , Vol. 28, No. 2 (Winter, 1968-1969), pp. 155-159

Published by: College Art Association

Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/775210

Roy Lichtenstein and the Popular Image

Keith Roberts

The Burlington Magazine , Vol. 118, No. 880 (Jul., 1976), pp. 514-515

Published by: The Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.

Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/878465