How Lichtenstein's "Whaam!" Became a Monumental Symbol of Pop Art
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- Опубліковано 8 жов 2019
- In this episode of The Most Famous Artworks in the World, discover Roy Lichtenstein's serious comic-inspired canvas Whaam! The painting disrupted the art world in the mid-1960s, delivering an enigmatic salvo at both the conventions of artistic expression and the post-war representation of conflict. By reworking a comic book image of an American jet destroying an enemy plane, Lichtenstein blows up audience expectations.
Celebrating art’s unique power to promote understanding and progress across cultures, Sotheby’s and Citi Private Bank are partnering to present 5 episodes of Most Famous Artworks.
You left out the two other comic artists who's work he used for this one - Jerry Grandenetti did the drawing he used from the attacking plane in another story from the same series as Irv Novick's composition was lifted from. And the rendering of the exploding plane was taken from work by Russ Heath in another war comic series.
All his work in this style was largely traced. The only issue with this is it has only recently really started to be acknowledged and even limited credit given. But here, you're doing it half assed and facts bare. Don't try to put lipstick on it, he appropriated work from other artists who were often under paid and uncredited in the books at times.
The 'simplification' being minimal - the parts here look different because they are actually copied from those other two artists not from the layout that Irv Novick drew in the "Star Jockey" story. And then the remaining stiffness and flatness of his version of the lines are mainly a byproduct of him not having a great instinct for the line values the OG comic artists were using, and trying to imitate the stroke of an ink brush at a smaller scale, blown up and built out of multiple passes with a paint brush in acrylics and oil.
And Then, they read a lot of speculative BS into it regarding an invented artists statement.
According to at least one cartoonist who met him and heard the story - Mort Walker did a comic about it, look it up! - He was board, his abstract canvases weren't selling. He started playing with comics he had in his studio to cheer himself up, he called Whamm a joke addressing the National Cartoonists Society meeting. But someone bought it, and his reps loved them. He started to sell them as fast as he could paint them. And when he thought to give credit to the comic creators who's work he was tracing and blowing up his agents discouraged him from doing it so he went along with them.
Irv Novick's original illustration features an American F-86 Sabrejet firing a rocket at a Soviet MiG-15 jet. Could someone explain to me why Lichtenstein turned it into an illustration of a prop driven WWII American P-51 Mustang firing a rocket at an American F-86 Sabrejet?
Super interesting. I learnt a bit more of that genious for my art skills
what genius?
I wish this had been a Ken Burns mini series, so I could watch it 9 hours long.
lol
Never understood why people love Ken Burns so much. His documentaries are the most bland things in the world.
멋찝니다~~
Howdy!
nice
Yeah, he just stole and never credited the comic artist-capitalism at his finest.
I'm very glad to see this is the top comment. its long overdue we completely forgot about this plagiarist. NOBODY knows the names of the original artists but we all know the name of this thief. they weren't asked permission, they weren't credited, they weren't compensated. they just woke up one and saw their art in a gallery with somebody else's name next to it.
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Hmmm. Lifted the image, resketched it in a simplistic style, projected and traced, used aluminium mesh... true art indeed. More like college kid. #JustAMERICANThings
How to Lichtenstein:
Step 1: Find comic book
Step 2: Find artwork to steal, do NOT credit the actual artist
Step 3: Reproduce the stolen art with little to no understanding of how comic art or lettering actually work.
Step 4: Sell that shit to normies and high art snobs who think they're so much better than actual artists making actual art.
To his credit (pun intended), comic artists were almost never credited back in the day. Even if he wanted to, he couldn't credit them.
@@applescruff1969 he absolutely could've credited them but chose not to.
Borlng plagiarism rewarded by lazy and dumb critics, curators, collectors and banks.
I like his stuff but admit it's not great art.
Overrated
From an artistic level, I agree. From a technical level, I disagree. When you consider the fact he did all of this by hand, it's pretty impressive.
@@applescruff1969 I get it, but still not my style.
@@applescruff1969 what? it really isn't... if you think this is impressive you are gonna shit the bed when you got to an art gallery and look at a Monet or a Van Gogh. what's hilarious actually is the original comic artists are much more impressive than he was. look at the originals they have a lot more detail and subtlety than his copies.
@@enei7045 That's why I said "From an artistic level". I agree that there's not much merit here. He just took an image out of a comic book panal and painted it on a canvas. But, from a technical level, it's impressive because it looks pretty much exactly like the original image.
@@applescruff1969 bro from a technical level it looks much worse than the originals he copied them from. have you ever seen the originals? there's so much more detail in them. the only reason Lichtenstein is famous is not off his own merit its because of the forced pop art scene which existed solely for people to become famous.