Things You Should Know About Pop Art Paintings History
By Ispas Marin, Sat Dec 10th

Pop art was an artistic movement that represented a strong shiftfrom the influence of the abstract expressionism. Pop artpaintings brought an original form of making art by introducingtechniques of commercial art and everyday life illustrations.

This movement first occurred in Great Britain in the late 1950sand it was meant to be a redefinition of the metaphysicalgravity of the abstract expressionism. Pop art paintings weremainly characterized by the insertion of everyday life images ofsoup cans, comic strips, Coke bottles or even stuffed animalsinto the artistic expression. The expressed aim of the pop artpaintings was to provide a meeting point for artists and public.Inserting commercial art symbols in their work, the artistsintended to blur the boundaries between art and common people inorder to make art ideas accessible for everyone.

The birth of this art movement during the 1950s-1960s wasn't acoincidence. Artists were getting tired of the inwardness andopacity of the abstract expressionism; the American society (andthe British one, but on a less extent) was enjoying deep changesin terms of economic revival after the constraints of the SecondWorld War. Therefore, the artist community mocked theshallowness and the materialism of the Americans, employingsymbols of mass culture (Coke cans,

magazines or comic strips)in their pop art paintings.

The artists who had embraced this art style used differentsymbols: American flags (Jasper Johns), comic strips (RoyLichtenstein) and soup cans (Andy Warhol) or stuffed animals(Robert Rauschenberg).

Pop art paintings also represented icons of the artists'reaction against the dullness and complexity of the abstractexpressionism. Abstract techniques were replaced with moreaccessible ones like humor or surface appearance. The centralidea of this art movement was to express messages to the mass bytransforming the ordinary things into art objects.

Although the pop art stream was very popular among the laymanpublic, it was highly controversial among the art criticscommunity. Some considered pop art paintings as cheap, tackyimitations of everyday life symbols; others regarded them asicons of the shallow American society at mid-century.

Nevertheless, this art movement represented a breath of vivid,fresh air in an art characterized until then by opacity andseriousness.

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