Pop Art

            "Pop art" was a 20th century art movement that utilized consumerism and popular culture. Andy Warhol, for example, changed the imagery of everyday objects, as well as entertainment figures, through distorted shapes, sizes, and bold colors. As the decades passed, the style of "pop art" slightly changed as well. Later artists, such as Tom Wesselmann and Allen Jones presented their subject matter in a more shocking perspective. Women, and more specifically their bodies, were often the target of graphic manipulation. This sexual presentation was seen as pleasurable entertainment for male viewers, as much past artworks often did. This paper will attempt to explain the changes made during the "pop art" movement, in addition to the specific roles women played in pop art. First, we must discuss what is "pop art"? "Pop art," as defined by the Concise Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, is a movement that emerged at the end of the 1950s as a reaction against the seriousness of abstract expressionism. (Encyclopedia.com) The term "Pop" stands for "popular art" or even for "pop bottle art, depending on the frequency with which such everyday objects appeared. The movement as a whole originated in England in the fifties and then naturally spread to the United States. This movement resulted as images were made popular through mass-media advertising and comic strips, and other everyday objects, such as pop bottles, beer cans, and other supermarket products. The images were then presented in bizarre combinations, distortions, or exaggerations in size. The original human-made object is always kept in its true form in some way. (Art Fundamentals, 305) The introduction of American Pop art resulted in a major reaction against abstract expressionism, which had dominated painting in the United States during the later 1940s and 1950s. During the later 1950s, there were many indications that American painting would return to a new kind of figuration.