Pop art and Robert Rauschenberg. Robert Rauschenberg’s ‘Combines’ and the links from him to notable Pop artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, and other notable artists.

Robert Rauschenberg said ‘Art is more like life when it is made from life’, and this essay is how this idea spawned one of the most popular forms of modern art – Pop Art. Rauschenberg used to take walks around his area hoping to come across objects or ideas to use in his art, in Pop Art’s heyday, readymade objects were more readily available than ever, which only accelerated Pop Art’s success to greater heights. In this essay I will discuss the things all the artists have in common, and highlight how they all came from the ideas of Rauschenberg.

Pop Art always has links to life, be it through common found objects such as Coke bottles that are incorporated physically into art, or their image used in a representative form, this also includes the images of mass culture, such as media figures, and similar compositions of adverts and media, emulated in an artistic form.

 In this essay, I will discuss how Pop art uses links to real life, using physical objects, images of real life objects, people and other subject matter. Rauschenberg used physical objects to include in his artwork, this clearly meant the work became three dimensional, entirely accurate and realistic, as it was made from life. Andy Warhol, made many ‘Brillo Boxes’, working to scale of the real Brillo Boxes and replicating the appearance, and worked from life this way.

Using a then current subject such as Brillo soapboxes for his work, encouraged people to question what art was and what it could be. His work glorified mass production and consumerism.

When art critics talk about pop artists, and how they address life, they are describing the variety of subject matters and the matters of society that the artist’s work highlights, such as mass production, the new consumerism society, the creation of common, universal uniform products. It also refers to media saturation of celebrities and public figures, but also the cheap throwaway, consumable products of the modern life. This is ‘life’ in the eyes of the pop artists.

The references to mass production are constantly evident in pop art, in a variety of ways. Lichtenstein’s use of the bendee dots comments on the sheer size of the population in the modern society, and also the consumer products themselves, the cheap throwaway items that forms an image of a uniform society made out of its own consumer products. He also took his imagery and his style from a lot of comic strip panels, which were some of the first cheap, commonly available products. Andy Warhol’s studio where he created all the images of the public figures and media celebrities, was famously named by the artist as ‘The Factory’, which is a clear, literal reference to the mass production at the time, and the production of his art and the imagery and objects they depicted and the ideas they represented. Warhol and the Pop artists wanted to introduce art that could be mass produced too, using the new technology and machinery to produce artwork that anyone could make, which blurred the lines between low culture and high art. This is meant so mean the low culture of advertising that we have come to see every day, is becoming the finest art of the time and has become a new powerful and popular art movement.

Pop artists primarily used images and materials of popular culture to create their artwork. ‘Pop artists searched for traces of ‘trauma’ in the medicated world of advertising, cartoons and popular imagery at large.

Pop artists believed everything is inter-connected and therefore sought to make those connections evident in their artwork.’ The term ‘trauma’ in this context means subject matter used in the advertising, cartoons and ‘popular imagery at large’ were issues that may not have been acceptable in the modern society or even discriminatory images that may have lingered since the Second World War. . In this sense, Pop art was very forward thinking, and for these reasons, has become one of the most popular art styles in recent history. The subject matter that was considered ‘traumatic’ to society included sexist imagery in advertising. Women were used to advertise a huge variety of objects ranging from kitchen appliances to new cars, from women dressed as typical housewives, to stripped down to their bikinis, lying on cars covered in soapy water. This was considered by the Pop artists as sexism and didn’t allow for equality in the 60’s society. The images using women to advertise things wouldn’t be acceptable today, as they depicted the women’s ‘role’ in society and their pure ‘functions’. The involvement of the discrimination against women and the inclusion of their sexual importance in Pop art highlighted the idea that it wouldn’t be acceptable in this time. This sexual nature became a huge reference point for major Pop artists.

Pop art broke away from the traditional values of art and became a new style altogether, with different colour schemes and popular imagery. ‘’Pop’ as a term of reference to popular culture, began to be applied to a distinct artistic ethos in the late 1950’s. By creating images of mass culture objects and media stars, the Pop art movement aimed to blur the boundaries between “high” art and “low” culture. The concept that there is no hierarchy of culture and that art may borrow from any source has been one of the most influential characteristics of Pop art’. Pop art created a new middleground of art which blended “low culture” which includes popular media stars, artists and popular mass produced products, and brought them into the world of fine art (“high” art).

The initial inspiration for including ready made objects of mass production and popular media figures came from Robert Rauschenberg. Coca Cola Plan, 1958 includes objects found on some of Rauschenberg’s walks, and while collecting objects that may contain a reference to the new mass production consumer society. This is arguably where pop art started, because Rauschenberg’s is the first popular art style known to include images and objects of popular culture. Artists such as Andy Warhol specifically focused on mass production consumer items and popular media figures for his subject matter.

The theme of mass production is often highlighted through the process of making the artwork itself. For example, Andy Warhol’s screen prints emphasise the repetition and reproduction of the same image over and over again, it brings up the issues of over-using someone’s image, devaluing the original, and turning it into a piece of graphic design media that is part of the ‘low culture’ mentioned earlier. This also blurs the boundaries between fine art and graphic design. Another artist that does this is Roy Lichtenstein, an artist who primarily replicates comic book panels on a huge scale. Lichtenstein selected comic books not only for their aesthetic appeal but because they were some of the earliest signs of mass production cheaply available in society, they mark the significance of the new mass production consumer society. Lichtenstein even deliberately includes all the small dots in his large canvas paintings to highlight the growing population that consumes the comics he works from. He also changes the function of the comic panels from reading them to creating a piece of art that highlights and references the mass production consumer society.

After the Second World War ended in 1945, the post war baby boom demanded the mass production of a huge amount of general goods for larger and growing families. It is arguably this that inspired Pop art. But there needs to be a link between the post war baby boom and art, and that is Robert Rauschenberg, who employed the effects of the baby boom and included it in his art. And as this was still a growing thing throughout the sixties, Pop art took off with the same principles and ideas. ‘Pop artists seemingly embraced the post-WWII manufacturing and media boom, reintroducing imagery into modern art and bucking traditional art hierarchies by depicting commonplace items in their art. Some critics have cited the Pop art choice of imagery as a completely enthusiastic endorsement of the industrialized capitalist market and the goods it circulated, while others have noted an element of cultural critique in the Pop artists' elevation of the everyday to high art: tying the commodity status of the goods represented to the status of the art object itself, emphasizing art's place as, at base, a commodity.’. But this isn’t the only use that Pop artists put to ‘ready-made’ imagery.

Pop art is considered by some critics to be copying and plagiarism of graphic designers. Although the work is physically and metaphorically transformed , 

The majority of Pop artists began their careers in commercial art: Andy Warhol was an highly successful magazine illustrator and graphic designer; Ed Ruscha was also a graphic designer, and James Rosenquist started his career as a billboard painter. Their background in the commercial art world trained them in the visual vocabulary of mass culture as well as the techniques to seamlessly merge the realms of high art and popular culture. The idea of transforming common objects into art initially came from Duchamp who put common objects on display, sometimes slightly altered to create art. This process of incorporating objects into art was new, a break from tradition and it broke at the right time. The time of the industrial revolution, which saw the beginning of the mass production consumer societies that we see in the modern day. This idea was taken a step further by Rauchenberg and his famous ‘combines’, where he went on walks to find common objects that he could possibly incorporate into his work. He would then incorporate them into three-dimensional pieces or stick them to canvases and paint over and around them. But this was merely a stepping-stone to Pop Art, which didn’t incorporate physical existing objects into the art itself, but instead, took their image. Crucially, Rauchenberg produced some of the earliest work that included images from popular culture, including many images of space exploration and President Kennedy. Rauchenberg created the step between Duchamp and modern Pop Artists. This idea was a natural evolution, and has also been argued that the television inspired this idea, the objects were always seen on a two dimensional surface, so it merely became a representation of the image, and therefore, an oversaturation of such images in everyone’s homes. The television had been available from the 1920’s but only to those who could afford the prices, especially in an economy still recovering from the great depression. But in the late 1950’s the sophistication of technology and mass production had reached an all time high, with readily available cheap materials, the television became cheaper and available to everyone.

A central figure of American Pop art, Roy Lichtenstein, is one of the most influential artists of the 20^th century, purely because of his revolutionary idea to replicate and increase the size of comic strip panels. He took these from obscure and less popular comics, to create a common composition that might be seen in advertising at the time. He altered these images from comics and in huge groups of his painting we see the inclusion of patriotism in his work, some of his late nudes are made up of the colours of the flag with the white dots changed into stars. This form of representation is unseen anywhere else in Pop art. In his early pieces such as ‘Look Mickey’ 1961, and ‘Whaam!” 1963, Lichtenstein imitated the industrial techniques of comic books, using a palette of primary colours, heavy black outlines and Benday dots that stimulated shadows and tone. These comic panels blown up to huge size are incredibly visually stimulating and very subtle in their suggestions towards the mass production consumer society, whereas Warhol seems very obvious in his work, replicating the image over and over again literally references to the repetition of images of popular culture.

The many sexual connotations of pop art are viewed with many different opinions, some see it as an honest representation and response to the media and the society at the time, but some see it as sexual exploitation and sexism for something as low as advertising. All through the 60’s, women were depicted alongside household objects and new products as advertising agents. Typical poses were bikini clad models lying on top of large objects such as new muscle cars, or seen dressed as stereotypical housewives holding new cleaning agents and similar items.

In Richard Hamilton’s $he, there are many abstract shapes some clearer than others, but representing things like a toaster, fridge, oven and an apron. These are all household appliances used mainly for cooking, which was considered to be a woman’s role in society at the time. There is a shape in the top left hand corner that represents a woman’s breasts, with an eye hovering slightly above them. This suggests the sexual side of a woman’s role in a relationship, but also, the repetition of the ‘female symbols of large breasts’ stereotypes women as a sex object, the idea of women as objects is reinforced by repeatedly putting women alongside objects in art and advertising. The painting suggests that the woman is only fit for functions like sex, cooking and looking good. Also, the title ‘$he’ suggests the woman is buyable just like the rest of the objects in the image.

This objectification of women was emphasised by the Pop artists to highlight the inequalities becomes ever so more obvious in society at the time.

Peter Phillips, Custom Painting No. 5 represents a 60’s fantasy dream or ideal world, and contains subject matter like American muscle cars, other machinery, nude women with sexually attractive features like highly exaggerated breasts, thin waist, long legs (so long that they go out of frame), an attractive face and generally slim figure. The lines and colours in the background give a dreamy effect and the abstract lines reinforce this sensation; the bright, vivid colours continue on the woman’s legs, highlighting her sexually appealing long legs. But the sexual focus isn’t just on women in this picture; above the car is a very abstract object which is phallic in appearance. This image also has suggestions to be a response to modern advertising, with the combination of highly sexual subject matter with arguably just a man’s or even the artists ideals and fantasy, but this can also be a continuation of an age old artistic genre of the nude.

 In Allen Jones’ Table, Hatstand and Chair, the women aren’t being used as an aid to sell something; they are literally being sold as objects. There are arguments as to whether the artist condones with a society that views women as objects, but Jones defends his work and argues that he is only highlighting society’s modern view of women, and objectifies the ‘ideal’ and desirable features of a woman which are big breasts, narrow waist, wide hips and long legs. Jones also says that the figures are ‘rather masculine’ and goes on to explain ‘Sturdy limbs and aggressiveness of posture are images usually associated with the male figure in art history’.

In conclusion, Rauschenberg’s quote ‘Art is more like life when it is made from life’, has been taken to all corners of pop art and all aspects explored, be it popular consumable and homogenised products, popular cultural figures and memorable moments in history, all the way to the production of art with images of nude women in them. Each of these comments on the same faults that lie under the umbrella of mass production and the time they are stuck in, but also highlights mans greatest achievements such as the moon landing, tributes to dead celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, and commenting on the art we see itself, and how it breaks the barriers that previously haven’t been broken, such as Lichtenstein breaking the traditional shape of the canvas. The Pop artists defined a generation through their media commentary and completely updated the techniques used in common and high art. Not only did they prove that art could be so easily made and produced as fast as any other mass produced product, it also proved that modern graphic design was a new way forward into fine art that had been previously unexplored. This generation defining art movement brought popular imagery and ready-made objects into the art world, and has produced some of the most valuable and intelligent art in history.





Bibliography

‘Pop Art – A new generation of style’
‘Pop Art – Tilderman Osterwold’

Tate Website