Richard Hamilton was the founder of Pop art and a visionary who outlined
its aims and ideals. A lollipop from one of his early collages furnished the
movement with its title.
Just
What Is It That Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing? 1956
Hamilton’s
style technique seems along the lines of “cut and paste”. He uses images from
magazines, books and other forms of imagery like stock photos. His work almost
has a comic style to it while also telling a story. In this piece he is clearly
informing the viewer of what could be going on in a typical household, then
again it could be what you do not see behind the curtain.
Looking
at the art, you can see a man and a woman appearing in a sexual type manor,
what makes it interesting to look at it, is how Hamilton chose to have them be
in black and white, it contrasts against the rest of the images because of the
color. When I first looked at this piece, my eyes tended to go towards the man
holding the lollipop, but as I looked further I started to see other elements
as well.
The
attention to detail was spot on, for instance, look at the couch that the woman
is on and note the leg casting a shadow, it adds depth to the artwork creating
a 3-dimensional look. He also uses different textures and patterns as shown for
the ceiling looking like a planet and the black and white rug. I think his use
of black and white to color ratio is done well, he has the main focal point of the
couple sorta speak, along with the rug and the images going on beyond the
window. For such a small room he was able to capture a lot without assaulting one’s
eyeballs.
When
you keep looking beyond, you can see a maid cleaning a stair case that seems to
be out of proportion to the rest of the images, but it shows a black arrow saying,
“ordinary cleaners reach only this far.” I think this was to show that finding
good help was hard back then with a staircase that seemed to stretch awhile and
how the maid went beyond was rare.
I
think what I truly enjoy about this one, is the attention to details. As said
the casting shadows but also the images framed on the wall and the photo
displayed on the TV, right down to the little cups and danish on the coffee
table. He has added layer after layer of stock imagery which I can relate to as
a graphic designer.
STUDY FOR A FASCHION PLATE 69 1969
Study for Faschion Plate 69 really stood out to me. It gave
me the 60’s vibe with the hair piece showing off the bang, right there notified
me of the era. Most of the piece is composed of white space, so that your eyes
are focused and engaged on the image that is in the center of the white space.
It almost reminded me of a Picasso painting with the enlarged one eye and how
there is symmetry but on the other hand there is not. I liked that when he
blocked out parts of the woman’s face, it did not just blend in with the background,
but he used another filter texture to off set and add background to make the
face come up and off the page.
Compared to his other piece I have talked about; the
color themes are very different. The first one he dealt with reds, browns,
blacks and yellows, whereas here it is less of a bold approach and has pastel
colors, a more softer tone to it. I feel that he can do different styles while
still sticking with his technique of pieces together images that he feels make
sense. I get more of the “pop art” effect in this piece rather then the home interior
because of the face, if you really look at it, there really is not much going
on with it, but it is how he placed the hair, how he made the eye cut out
square and bigger than its actual proportion and certain images blend nicely with
one another. I liked how he used geometric shapes fur each component of her
face and how it all seems to be a in cube like structure.
To add because I did not notice it at first, Hamilton combines
not only images, but he also adds his artistic painting to his work which is
interesting, I believe that is what is used in the second image.
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