Museum paper

               Pop Art was born in London, where some young artists made collages with pictures cut from popular magazines.  The artists used real objects or media sources (include comic strip, the advertising layout, newspaper, etc) to create their art in the mid 1950s.  They tried to challenge the traditional definition of art and most of their work was full of irony. Pop Art does not critique materialism and consumerism of modern popular culture; rather, it reflects their pervasive presence.  Roy Lichtenstein who was born in New York in 1923 was one of the most important leading artists of the pop art movement of 1960s. His work was mainly inspired by the comic-book and he used parody to define the pop art in the movement.    Girl with Ball is one of his earliest famous artworks, 153cm × 91.9 c and was created in 1961 and it reflects the culture of the sixties in the US.  Lichtenstein’s inspiration for this piece of art was from a well-known newspaper advertisement for the Mount Airy Lodge in the Pocono Mountains and because of this, some people considered the work as the commercial art.  It gave people an interesting feeling which was different with what the sexy figure gave us on the ad. The artist shows the consumerist society and people’s leisure activity through his painting. In this painting, we can see a girl wearing a black bathing suit playing with a red stripes beach ball. The red of her lips and tongue is as vivid as the ball’s and they appear to be able to catch the viewer’s eyes immediately.   Her mouth is opened, and she seems to be speaking to others.  Waving hair and obvious facial expression, gesture and body posture, all of these are telling us the girl is having an interesting and exciting match on the beach.  The artist does not design any detailed background for the figure; he just uses simple yellow to show the good weather.  The swimsuit’s style is also typical of 1960s. Lichtenstein uses Ben-Day dots of primary colors to create this work. The bold color and simplified design successfully present a vacation atmosphere.  Also, the piece gives the viewer a feeling of freedom and reveals the artist’s values for nature. 

            Dada movement began to join a new movement—Surrealism.  Surrealism was officially launched in Paris in 1924 and led by Breton who was a French writer and poet.  The artworks in the two movements both focus on logic and reason and protest the direction of European culture. The artists sought to explore the dream-world after going through the cruelty of the war. Not similar to Dadaists, Surrealists uses unconventional techniques, such as frottage and automatism to create the artwork.  Max Ernst was born in 1891, was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet.  He was an important figure of the Dada movement and surrealism movement.  Ernst’s famous artwork titled Two Children are threatened by a Nightingale was created in 1924, and was considered as the last consequence of his early collages and the farewell of a technique. This unique work combines painted surface and real objects, measuring 27 1/2 x 22 1/2 x 4 1/2".  The wooden frame is the important part of the work; it connects to the red wooden gate very well and shortens the distance between the viewer and the figures, the scene in the painting.  The blue knob on the right hand side also becomes a little focal point of the whole view. It makes people curious about its relationship with the figure. The little title hand written in French on the front somehow gives me a kind of odd feeling. It seems more like a warning for somebody.  In the painting, the artist depicts a girl who has a beautiful curled long hair is scared by a bird, running after it with holding a knife. Near the house, there is something (perhaps another bird) lying on the ground. Moving to the roof of the wooden house, we can see a man carrying a baby with a dangerous standing posture. He is trying to grab the knob and take advantage of the item to escape from the world that he lives in.  The figures Ernst creates both have the same personality traits—brave, indomitable.  The tile and the story of the work were actually inspired by a fever dream that young Ernst experienced. And the nightingale usually represents the hope in art and literature. The artist uses nightingale to express his intense feeling about the world events.