Hot Dog, Roy Lichtenstein

Hot Dot

Roy Lichtenstein

1962

22 x 36 inches, Oil on Canvas

Movement: Pop Art

Setting: Lichtenstein was strongly influenced by Andy Warhol's images that were embedded in commodity culture.

Technique: Here he is beginning to experiment with his mature "Ben Dots" style. He uses the technique of tight circles for the background and parts of the bun but contrasts that with the thick outlining and glistening painting of the dog itself. For this piece, Lichtenstein drew the image to almost an exact copy from an advertisement and then projected the image onto a canvas where he traced the image to further his message.

Analysis: Similar to Warhol, the image floats in space, more reminiscent of a logo than the food itself. Where Lichtenstein pulls away form Warhol's imagery is that he does not try and embody the realism and trompe l'oeil quality that Warhol attains. The meat glistens in a cartoon like way, it is the ideal image of a hot dog yet inedible - the allure is stripped from the advertisement that it emulates. In this way, Lichtenstein is replicating Jasper Johns' ideals from his Flag series where he provides the minimal amount of detail to signify the image he is copying while he toys with the rest of it; this is not a real hot dog, just a symbol of it. The result of his work is a hotdog that is cold, and far way - it captures the large, brash quality of the industrial world and the mechanization of advertisements without interacting with the viewer.

Flag, Jasper Johns

Flag

Jasper Johns

1954

42 x 60 inches, Encaustic, Oil & Collage on Plywood

Movement: Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art 

 
Setting: the first of a large series for Johns manipulation with flag imagery. Holds many complex metaphors regarding secrecy and spying relating it to the Cold War. 
Technique: composed of three canvases mounted on plywood. The style - encaustic - he used melting colored  over newspapers
Analysis: Utilization of the encaustic technique also relates to concealment/clues of the Cold War. The piece is both an object and a flag at the same time – both art and a symbol with an interesting contrast. It references modern events and pulls from ancient technique. Because Jasper Johns was gay this could be taken as ironic, Johns is open to America and embracing the symbol that identifies the country and yet shunned by it

Women in the Garden, Claude Monet

-->

 Women in the Garden

Claude Monet

1866-1867

8x7 feet, Oil on Canvas

Current Location: Musée d'Orsay

Movement: Impressionism

Setting: One of Monet's earlier paintings. It was rejected from the Salon of 1867 for a supposed weak narrative.
Technique: There is one stroke with one color - we are meant to blend the paint with the eye, very tactile brushwork. There is a rapid and very physical use of the brush, the primary colors were spotted in strokes then left untouched. He focuses on texture and color now before his movement to light and color in later paintings. Monet cancels the spatial reading by locking everything into the same plane, he has a tactile way of dealing with form. He creates a pattern through rhyming the stripes in the dress to the tree trunks, the bouquet she holds to the flowers behind her, an embedding of woman in nature. Monet sets up a painters problem in the decorative, flat organization against the volume and geometry inherent in the human form.
Influence: Monet challenges Manet's Luncheon on the Grass through this piece, getting rid of all of the historical aspects and references in order to do something different. There is influence in Flemish models, like renaissance painter Peter Paul Rubens. The way he saw more color in shadows -- shadow as a compliment of the light it reflects (i.e. red has a green shadow). Also looked to the flat images from Japanese prints. He is influenced by fashion plates to find the dresses, also the elegance in Jean-Antoine Watteau's paintings.
Analysis: The idea of the flat as modern, aggressive rejection of the renaissance ideal of painting as a continuation of the illusion of our space. This threatened critics in the 19th century because it kept the audience out and references advertising, this cheapened fine art to critics. The women don expensive dresses alluding to a kind of fantasy as Monet would not have been able to afford these. He goes back to a time of extreme elegance. The women are all the same woman - Camille. The dresses are a sign of modernity and contemporary fashion, they rhyme with the conspicuous consumption popular during this time in Paris. The leisure class, Watteau's references to courtiers and aristocrats enjoying the pastoral (Embarkation for Cythera).