A Development of Modernism – Pop Art

The Pop Art movement is a development of Modernism which sprung up in Britain in the mid-1950s. It challenged the traditional values of art as well as keeping the simplistic values of Modernism. The movement was fun and allowed the artists the use of mass-production to publicise their work which was an extremely important part of the movement as mass communication such as advertising were on the rise. It was not long after the war that this movement took over, and supplied the public with fun and uplifting art rather than the typical fine art of the time. Their work removed the material from its context, combining objects and images to create fantastic pieces of work.

"The world fascinates me"

Andy Warhol is a superb example of this movement and is still looked upon today as his work appears over and over again. The most iconic in my opinion is his work of Marilyn Monroe.

The original picture is from the film Niagara which she appeared in. He used silkscreen and rolled ink over each layer, each colour required another layer which is why there are subtle variations in each print. I think he saw a world which was in despair and looked towards the stars such as Marilyn Monroe and Michael Jackson etc and managed to create art to raise the spirits of the public. I think Andy Warhol should still be looked upon as an inspiration as he, in my opinion, brought a life back to art and allowed the world to move on from Modernism although many of these values translate into his work.

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