How Did Andy Warhol Change The World

Andy Warhol was born in 1928, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Warhol’s started painting at the age of eight but became known to the world in the late 1950s. He graduated high school when he was sixteen years old and enrolled in the Carnegie Institute of Technology. Andy Warhol became a commercial illustrator, in 1949, the same year he moved to New York. He worked for well-known magazines like The New Yorker, Vogue, etc. He won awards like the American Institute of Graphics Art with his out of the ordinary advertisement. Andy Warhol became not only a painter, he was also a filmmaker, author, director, and a photographer.
Warhol focused on being different from other artist of the era. His hope of doing comic strips and cartoon soon crumbled by Roy
Lichtenstein since he focused on comic strips. Andy chose to be different by focusing on pop culture. That’s where his career hit it off. He became such an important figure in the Art world was because of his contribution to the Pop Art movement.
The Pop art movement became famous in the late 1950s. The Pop Art movement was based on daily things people would purchase in the store. Andy Warhol’s career focused on the material things everyone had access to and celebrities. It believed in the modern culture and the new attention-calling advertisement. Many people had their doubts about Pop Art. On the other hand, there were other open minded people that believed in this new style. His painting stand out in the art world since it focused on what people were facing each day.
From the 1950s to the 1960s people were recovering from the World War II, facing new ideas and having a new set of mind after the war.
Women no longer had to stay at home, they were able to work at factories. African Americans were able to sign up for the army. The world was changing in many different ways and so was art. During these times poor people would line up to receive soup and bread. These lines were called ‘Bread lines’. “America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest.” Said Andy Warhol. Soup was always available to people. The social scale wasn’t being represented in daily objects. This is how his most famous artwork came into
place. The ‘Campbell’s Soup Can’ canvas is his most recognized artwork.
The soup cans were available to anyone. Andy Warhol wanted to project the positive side of everyday things. In this painting each can was painted and stamped on the bottom of the drawn can for details. There are thirty-two cans in the canvas, eight rows and four columns of cans. At first sight the cans look all the same but if the canvas is well observed, it can be noticed that every can is a different flavor. The method he used for this canvas was “silk printing, a popular technique for mass production.” (1)
Principles of design can be seen in this canvas. Balance is one of them, all of the cans are the same size, shape and color. There are no emphasis in this canvas. Visual rhythm is seen in the space between each can, also the repetition of the warm colors in every single can. In this canvas, the main element of art present is form, even though the drawing is cartoonish, there are lines that emphasize the width which makes the viewer know the can being drawn has volume.
Andy Warhol used different materials to create his artwork. Some of these materials were ink, oil on a canvas, acrylic, and graphite
pencil.
The ‘Green Coca-Cola Bottles’ is one of his artworks where he used oil on canvas. The art work has sixteen bottles across and seven in each row. This artwork was painted in 1962. In this canvas there are 112 bottles of Coca-Cola, the background that Andy uses is white which makes people focus more on the curves of the green glass bottles. Andy Warhol “Utilized silkscreen technique, which mechanicalized some aspects of the painting, but also kept that unevenness across the painting, to reel in the human aspect.” (2)
Value in this canvas is present, many of the bottles don’t have the same darkness. The space in this canvas is very small which makes the painting have visual rhythm. “No amount of money can get you a better coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking.” Explained Warhol. This goes back to the way Andy Warhol believed these material things somehow bring people together.
In the 1960s Andy Warhol moved to ‘The Factory’. In the ‘Factory’ people would get together and converse. This was a place where Andy Warhol would write, as well as use his skills to paint, he also photographed from street people to celebrities and musicians. Andy Warhol would paint people like Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, and Elizabeth Taylor, etc. ‘Triple Elvis’ is a canvas where the modern life of Andy Warhol can be present. Popular culture is clearly visible in this artwork. The canvas is all black and white. Visual rhythm is part of the elements in this painting. The rhythm can be seen in the black and white color as well as the repetition in the three pictures of Elvis. There is no emphasis since the three figures are all the same length and appearance.