When someone mentions Pop art, what come to our mind immediately, may be the artist Andy Warhol and his art work Campbell’s Soup I (1968), coca cola bottles, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis and the etc. Only few people, however, think of Richard Hamilton (24 February 1922 – 13 September 2011). Actually, he is considered by historians to be one of the early works of Pop art. He was a British painter and collage artist. Here was one of his products, named ‘just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?’, produced for the This is the tomorrow ,exhibition of the independent group in London.
What is Pop art? Pop art existed in the late 40s (British). Romanticism was leading the trendy that time. After the World War2, The young artist thought America had an affluent and enjoyable culture, which was very different from their country. Their country were very poor and in lacks of basic resources. They were unsatisfactory about it and created the new art style. The difference between Romanticism and Pop art is that, the former one is strict and conscientious while the latter one is free and normal to human life. According to Hamilton’s definition of Pop Art from a letter to Alison and Peter Smithson dated 16 January 1957, « Pop Art is: popular, transient, expendable, low-cost, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky, glamorous, and Big Business » – stressing its everyday, commonplace values.
In this art work, the collage depicts a muscle-man holding a Pop. It meant that in the late 50, USA people had a popular trend, the society redefined what beauty is, and one meaning of the beauty is that man should have muscle and show the body shape. Also, the artist was drawn a woman with bare breasts wearing a lampshade hat. I guess that the artist wanted to show the sexy and open culture of USA. We can see the recorder and TV in the art work and all of this were invented and made the home more appealing.
Besides, the picture between TV and the light is a comic. It was crude and I thought the artist mocked the American as a low culture people. All in all, the artist may want to show the strange culture after World War2 and let us have a deep understanding about the situation of that time.
There were many reasons which can be explained that the artist depicts the picture. One very simple reason, the artist is affected by the surrounding environment. Because of the rich and poor life style, the artist may want to show the reality and blame the USA with his culture of over consumption behavior.
Actually, the origins of collage can be traced back hundreds of years, but this technique was popular again in the early 20th century. Picasso was regarded as the first using collages technique in oil paintings. The way of creating collage is manifold. At the very beginning, artists could be very free to create their collage without anything meaningful. They felt the work better and that was ok. In 1920s, Dadaism artists used the collage to oppose traditional style “Nonsense art”. In 1930s, many artists, including Surrealism, Max Ernst, Salvador Dali, and so on, through the creation of collage, explore photo creation. Up to 50s, there were some changes. The form of collage is developed to have the function of social judge. For example, Bill was professional to edit the photos and criticize the social values. And Richard Hamilton was another example. Hence, we can see the changing function of collage from the early 20 century to mid-20 century.
Finally, different picture were grouped to an art work. It was very fresh and special. More important, it showed a meaningful story and at the same time, let people reflect the social issue, culture or anything important around us after reading the work.
