Roy Lichtenstein

The Ambiguous Nature of Roy Lichtenstein

Julienne Lin Prof. Williams AH 392

In the early 1960s, abstract expressionist art was replaced with images classified as low art - comic strips, advertisements and other mass-produced images - pop art emerged as an established and recognized genre to the dismay of many formalist critics, such as Clement Greenberg.1 Like several art movements, Pop art happened in part as a reaction to its preceding movement, abstract expressionism. The ideas that were widely discussed and written about in abstract expressionist art (the existential experience and the canvas as an arena to act in) were replaced with images based on everyday, vernacular objects of which high art critics felt did not belong in a gallery. 2 Pop artists were fascinated by the expanding range of visual media that surrounded them during the 50s and 60s.3 By illustrating vernacular images from Americans’ daily lives, pop artists took advantage of deeply rooted cultural meanings, and demonstrated their opinion on how seemingly common, everyday images could instigate so much analysis from their audience.4 The vernacular traditionally refers to the standard native language of a particular area; however, in relation to art in public spaces, the vernacular was composed of images that the normal, everyday person was most familiar with. During the 60s, those objects were mainly commercial products.5 Roy Lichtenstein was a pop artist who was acknowledged widely for his comic strip reproductions. He appropriated images that were related to the vernacular, from popular cartoons to cinema love stories in a style that distanced himself from his work, while simultaneously allowing him to comment on the subjects he produced.

Lichtenstein’s two most recognized comic strip themes revolved around domestic scenes 1

Steven Henry Madoff, Pop Art: A Critical History (Berkeley: University of California Press,1997), 98.

Harrison Wood, Art Theory:1900-1990 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 581.

3 Kobena Mercer, Pop art and Vernacular Cultures. (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2007), 7.

4 Kobena Mercer, Pop art and Vernacular Cultures, 9.

5 Donald B. Kuspit, “Pop Art: A Reactionary Realism,” Art Journal, Vol. 36, No. 1 (1976), 31-32.

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of distraught women crying at home, and war scenes of men fighting outdoors.6 Some critics, such as Bradford R. Collins and Keith Roberts, have read into Lichtenstein’s work and suggested connections between his personal relationships and his paintings; citing that his feelings towards his career and personal life as the reason why he chose subjects such as melodramatic love stories and quirky cartoon heroes such as Popeye.7 Lichtenstein himself said he was not completely withdrawn from the content of his work.

“Personally, I feel that in my own work I wanted to look programmed or impersonal but I don’t really believe I am being impersonal when I do it…”8 Lichtenstein’s ambiguous comment on his approach towards his work further proves that the basis for his works could have multiple readings.

Claims that Lichtenstein’s personal life served as the basis behind his works are not always visually apparent in the paintings themselves. There is a certain tendency for critics to make these connections in order to gain a historical understanding of Lichtenstein’s paintings, and the pop art movement in general. However, these types of claims tend to take away from significant characteristics of his work, such as the process Lichtenstein used to create his images, and his critique on the mass-produced consumer culture of that time period.

Lichtenstein’s Popeye from 1961 is an example of a work that Collins believed reflected his feelings towards abstract-expressionist painters.9 He illustrated a scene with Popeye throwing a punch at his enemy, Bluto, and essentially knocking him out.

6

Donald B. Kuspit, “Pop Art: A Reactionary Realism,” 34.

Bradford R. Collins, “Modern Romance: Lichtenstein’s Comic Book Paintings, “Vol. 17, No. 2 (2003): 62-64.

8 Michael Lobel, Image Duplicator (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 18.

9 Bradford R. Collins, “Modern Romance: Lichtenstein’s Comic Book Paintings, “Vol. 17, No. 2 (2003): 63.

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Lichtenstein’s representation of Bluto was said to be a caricature of abstract-expressionist painters and their supporters, according to Collins10. Bluto reflected the personalities’ of this group of painters who were known to have overly-confident and condescending attitudes toward pop artists.11 In comparison, Collins suggested that Lichtenstein related himself to Popeye, a seemingly mild-mannered character, but victorious in the end.12 Although Lichtenstein’s illustration of Popeye could have related to his personal feelings toward the abstract-expressionist painters who were characterized as tough, charismatic individuals, an aspect that is more visually evident is his use of “action lines.” Lichtenstein was interested in codes and signs and how they culminated into a symbolic meaning that was understood by the general public. In order to show that Popeye was throwing a punch at Bluto, Lichtenstein had to pose the figures as if they were fighting, and drew stars and action lines, strokes that indicated action and were widely recognized as a cultural symbol in society. He demonstrated how our cultural surroundings enable us to interpret codes that are initially abstract, and allow us to make them into a universal representation of larger issues such as actions and objects.

Consequently, Lichtenstein also felt that humans were increasingly becoming reliant on machines, and illustrated this with his famous “Benday dots” to demonstrate the rise of mechanical reproduction. Benday dots were another example of a series of dots or codes that came together to represent a recognizable image. Lichtenstein’s artistic adjustments to comic book scenes significantly sharpen the original content, indicating that he did take the subject matter into account.13 Lichtenstein chose masculine war 10

Bradford R. Collins, “Modern Romance: Lichtenstein’s Comic Book Paintings, “Vol. 17, No. 2 (2003): 64-65.

11 Bradford R. Collins, “Modern Romance: Lichtenstein’s Comic Book Paintings, 65.

12 Ibid, 65.

13 Keith Roberts, “Roy Lichtenstein and the Popular Image,” The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 118, No. 880 (1976), 514.

themes and feminine romantic relationships for his paintings, and exaggerated both subjects in melodramatic ways by zooming into a character, changing the speech bubbles’ placement and size, and at times its text.

According to Letty Eisenhauer, a student who lived with Lichtenstein after his divorce with Isabel Wilson, Lichtenstein’s reproductions of love-struck teenage relationships reflected his own love life, and his ironic disappointment, yet longing for love.14 An example would be his Drowning Girl produced in 1963, illustrated after a DC comic called Secret Hearts. Lichtenstein’s version of the comic strip depicted only the drowning girl, with the rest of the original scene cropped out. Lichtenstein’s Drowning Girl focuses on a distraught female, crying as she drowns, with a thought bubble reading “I don’t care – I’d rather sink than call Brad for help!” By illustrating this type of melodramatic scene in which the girl is willing to risk her life over calling her beloved for help, Lichtenstein was making a humorous comment about typical love stories that common people such as truck drivers and teenage girls read and were familiar with everyday. Placing Lichtenstein’s own complicated love life as the basis for his melodramatic love scenes is an easy assumption. However, it can be argued that Lichtenstein based his theme on other aspects of culture that were popular during that time period, such as novels and movies.

Comics had originally derived from and were influenced by the cinema, which was a huge part of everyday life in America in the 50s and 60s.15 Lichtenstein’s depictions of love and war scenes tended to have an outdated and obsolescent quality.

14

15

Bradford R. Collins, “Modern Romance: Lichtenstein’s Comic Book Paintings, 66.

Keith Roberts, “Roy Lichtenstein and the Popular Image,” The Burlington Magazine Vol. 118, No. 880 (July, 1976), 515.

Other critics, such as Daryl Chin have written that Lichtenstein was influenced by old movies that were prominent prior to the 60s such as A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie16. Both of these films were based on dramatic love stories involving betrayal or violence. Lichtenstein might have been illustrating obsolescent scenes that have outlasted time rather than drawing inspiration from his personal love life. Chin’s argument supported the fact that Lichtenstein was addressing issues in society, such as the post-war conditions of American culture.17 Another major issue that was prominent during the 1960s, and even prior to that was the role of women in American households. During this time period, American women were expected to find life satisfaction and fulfillment in getting married, becoming housewives and raising children. This diminished role in women naturally became an issue with individuals who stood for women’s rights.

Lichtenstein’s The Refrigerator from 1962 corresponds with the theme of the housewife during this time. This illustration was based on the back of a box of baking soda, which was a popular housecleaning product.18 The painting shows a housewife with “red-rouged” lips, a Mamie Eisenhower hairstyle and a fifties-style shirtwaist.19 The housewife is wearing a fake, sugary smile while she wipes the interior of her refrigerator with baking soda, as if gaining extreme pleasure from this dull, household task. The advertisement was trying to glamorize the role of the housewife by making her look pretty and classy. Lichtenstein undermines that image by giving the housewife old16

Daryl Chin, “From Popular to Pop. The Arts in/of Commerce: Mass Media and the New Imagery,” Performing Arts Journal Vol. 13, No. 1 (1991), 8-9.

17 Ibid, 10.

18 Sara Doris. Pop Art and the Contests Over American Culture (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 212-213.

19 Sara Doris. Pop Art and the Contests Over American Culture (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 214.

fashioned hair and out-dated make-up and clothes. He drew her with an enormous head and unsettling small shoulders, with a flat face and boneless fingers. Her smile is so sweet and large that it almost looks manic. Critics have written that Lichtenstein presented the housewife in an outdated style in order to illustrate that this gender role was also outdated.20 At the same time, The Refrigerator could also be viewed as Lichtenstein’s attempt to stray away from brand names and illustrate the generic. Lichtenstein had said, “There’s something about brand names that I don’t care for.”21 In most of Lichtenstein’s works on consumer products, the brand name of the products was removed. Although The Refrigerator was based on a baking soda advertisement, neither the product’s brand name, nor the product itself is visible in his painting. In contrast to Andy Warhol’s images of consumer products such as Coca-Cola bottles, Brillo Boxes and Campbell’s Soup Cans, Lichtenstein chose to illustrate only one object, instead of rows of them.

Lichtenstein deliberately left out product logos “in a consumer society that was structured around the precision of brand names.” 22 According to art historian Carter Ratcliff, Lichtenstein typically took recognizable imagery, such as consumer products, and altered them in a style of his own. The term for this process was coined by Ratcliff as to “Lichtensteinize.”23 In this sense, the reading that Lichtenstein was advocating for women’s rights is just as viable as the visual evidence of Lichtenstein appropriating images as his own.

20

Doris, Sara. Pop Art and the Contests Over American, 213-214.

Ibid, 214.

22 Michael Lobel, Image Duplicator (New Haven: Yale University Press), 44.

23 Ibid, 47.

21

Lichtenstein also appropriated scenes from war comics to accomplish the greatest effect in presenting his ongoing theme of the interaction between the human body and the machine.24 Lichtenstein was interested with monocularity during this time, which related to having only one eye or using one eye.25 The use of monocularity can be seen in many of his war comic representations, such as Torpedo…Los! from 1963. In this painting, Lichtenstein depicted a submarine captain looking through a periscope. His exposed eye serves as the focal point on the canvas.26 Lichtenstein enlarged the captain’s head and made the speech bubble smaller, but with a more commanding text. At this point in time, the speech bubble was so widely recognized in society that it was no longer recognized as a symbol of speech, but as speech itself.27 The words “Torpedo…Los!” are reemphasized as a captain’s authoritative command, and serve as the title of the canvas.

The most noticeable and significant alteration Lichtenstein made in this work is the image of the periscope. Lichtenstein illustrated the periscope to look like a complicated, technological machine made up of wires, tubes and other mechanicallooking parts. The original image of the periscope was simple with a smooth surface and a simple bar to hold on to as the captain peered into it. Lichtenstein’s version creates a visual tension between the captain’s eye and the periscope, emphasizing the significance between the interaction between the human body and the machine. Author Michael Lobel points out that in the original image, the captain’s visible eye is closed while in Lichtenstein’s depiction his eye remains open.28 Lichtenstein’s version produces an 24

Donald B. Kuspit, “Pop Art: A Reactionary Realism,” 32.

Ibid, 88.

26 Ibid, 89.

27 Albert Boime, “Roy Lichtenstein and the Comic Strip.” Art Journal Vol. 28, No. 2 (1968 -1969), 156.

25

28

Albert Boime, “Roy Lichtenstein and the Comic Strip,” Art Journal Vol. 28, No. 2 (1968-1969), 158.

ambiguity as to which eye the captain is using to look. In the original image, we are to assume he is looking with the eye hidden behind the periscope since his visible eye is closed. However, in Lichtenstein’s depiction, the viewer can assume both eyes are open, or only the one we see is open. In this way he plays with the viewer’s reading on monocular vision. Torpedo…Los! was a painting in which technical matters and a play on vision were emphasized and significant.

Lichtenstein’s Image Duplicator was one of his most famous works in which he blew up a comic strip of the X-men nemesis, Magneto, with a speech bubble filling the top half of the canvas reading “What? Why did you ask that? What do you know about my image duplicator?” Image Duplicator is yet another example of a work in which critics have read into as a personal response from Lichtenstein against his critics.29 The reason is because he makes a reference to the process and subject of his own work, reproducing commercial art, in the speech bubble itself. This painting gives more evidence to the fact that Lichtenstein was in a sense challenging the constant criticizing of his work. The word “image duplicator” was never a part of the original comic, a phrase that Lichtenstein inserted into the speech bubble himself.

The most visually apparent and powerful characteristic of this painting is usually referred to as the content and positioning of the text.30 Lichtenstein altered the speech bubble and let it take over the entire top portion of the canvas. Magneto’s stare is intensified by the balance and proportional quality of his eyes and his helmet. The helmet yet again addresses Lichtenstein’s concerns between the human body and the machine.31

29

Michael Lobel, Image Duplicator (New Haven: Yale University Press), 4.

Ibid, 10.

31 Ibid 30

This work has been referred to from certain critics, such as Albert Boime, as Lichtenstein’s “presumed ‘self-portrait.’”32 This evidence has been based on his challenge to the viewer about the process in producing his paintings, and how his works were criticized for being mere reproductions of comic strips. However, according to Lobel, the text about his image duplicator could also be read in the sense that he was referring to his process of image reproduction, that Magneto is not an image duplicator, but has an image duplicator. This meaning could refer back to Lichtenstein’s production process, in which the principles he adhered to were original, but at the same time Lichtenstein relied on borrowed images to produce his works.

Lichtenstein’s theme between the human body and the machine is further represented in the process he used to create Image Duplicator. His process begins with a mechanically reproduced comic book panel in which he uses to make a small sketch. He then uses another machine, a projector, to magnify his own sketch to a size that he wants, and proceeds to sketch the enlarged image onto his canvas by hand. This oscillation between producing an image by hand and relying on a machine is fitting to his theme of the interaction of the human body and the machine. According to Lobel, the painting makes a reference to the problem of reproducing images in a decidedly ambiguous way.33 Not only was the reproduction of images ambiguous in Lichtenstein’s works, his entire approach and incentive behind his art were ambiguous as well. At times Lichtenstein seemed unsure of his motives himself in regards to his approach towards his work. “I like to pretend that my art has nothing to do with me.”34 Clearly there were ambiguities regarding the basis of Lichtenstein’s works between his personal life, and his 32

Ibid..11.

Ibid,12.

34 Ibid, 61.

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tendency to distance himself from his work. The Pop art movement in general consisted of a series of ambiguities. Critics tried to understand which pop artists glorified consumer culture, and which artists were critiquing it, with many coming to the conclusion that the artists were doing both. Pop art was a movement noted for its interest in ironies, according to author David McCarthy.35 Pop art elicited viewers and critics to reconsider vernacular images that they might have otherwise overlooked. Similar to Lichtenstein’s ambiguous nature towards his work, many American individuals had ambiguous attitudes towards the rise of consumer culture as well, but identified themselves with popular culture at the same time.

Bibliography Bann, Stephen. “Pop Art and Genre.” New Literary History Vol. 24, No. 1 (Winter, 1993): 115-124.

35

David McCarthy, Pop Art (London: Tate Publishing, 2000), 15.

Boime, Albert. “Roy Lichtenstein and the Comic Strip.” Art Journal Vol. 28, No. 2 (Winter, 1968 -1969): 155-159.

Chin, Daryl. “From Popular to Pop. The Arts in/of Commerce: Mass Media and the New Imagery.” Performing Arts Journal Vol 13, No. 1 (Jan., 1991): 5-20.

Collins, Bradford R. “Modern Romance: Lichtenstein’s Comic Book Paintings. ”American Art”, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Summer, 2003): 61-85 Doris, Sara. Pop Art and the Contests Over American Culture Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Jeffet, William. “Pop Art: A Continuing History by Marco Livingston.” The Burlington Magazine Vol. 133, No. 1058 (May, 1991): 326-327.

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Kuspit, Donald B. “Pop Art: A Reactionary Realism.” Art Journal Vol. 36, No. 1 (Autumn, 1976): 31-38.

Madoff, Steven Henry. Pop Art: A Critical History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.

McCarthy, David. Pop Art. London: Tate Publishing, 2000.

Mercer, Kobena. Pop art and Vernacular Cultures. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2007.

Roberts, Keith. “Roy Lichtenstein and the Popular Image.” The Burlington Magazine Vol. 118, No. 880 (July, 1976): 514-515.

Siegel, Mark. “Doing it for Andy.” Art Journal Vol. 62, No. 1 (Spring, 2003): 6-13.

Taylor, Paul. “Post-Pop Art.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism Vol. 49, No. 1 (Winter, 1991): 106.

Wood, Harrison. Art in Theory:1900-1990. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999.

Popeye, 1961, oil on canvas.

The Refrigerator, 1962, oil on canvas

Drowning Girl, 1963, oil on canvas

Torpedo…Los! 1963, oil on canvas

Image Duplicator, 1963, oil on canvas