The Popular Movement During The 1950's

During the 1950’s the pop movement emerged on the art scene, it was a movement that consisted of artist incorporating various aspects from popular culture, into their artworks, whether it be material goods, celebrities, comics or other things from media. In 1956, English Painter Richard Hamilton created his famous work of art “Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?”, a collage composed of various cutouts from other works of art or media. When the cutouts were all placed together, the image depicted a man and woman inside of their home surrounded by various material goods and objects from the culture. The collage was meant to satirize the modern day life in 1956, a time when people where very fond of the idea of
owning many material goods. The man in the image is a cutout of Body Builder Irvin Koszewski, a very popular sports figure from the time.
He is depicted holding an enlarged tootsie pop, a very popular product of the time. The woman in the image was Jo Baer, a very popular artist of the times, she is posed nude on the couch. The decision to have her posed nude on the couch could have been to show the transition of women starting to posses more sexuality in society. Throughout the home of the man and women are various popular objects of the time, such as the new Hoover vacuum model that was made during the time. Also sitting on the table was a canned ham, another popular object during the 1950’s. Behind the ham is a television of a popular brand from the time. Throughout the house are many other objects popular to the 1950’s as well, each one representing material goods that many of the people possessed during the
time.
Many centuries before the pop art movement, artists of the 1400s were starting to transition into the Renaissance era in art.
This era of transition lead to the Northern Renaissance movement in art, a movement that consisted of creating images of aspects of society, focuses on the surroundings of the times. The artwork created by the artists of the time focused on the surroundings in culture by painting images with great detail and focusing on the objects in the background as well not just the main focus of the image, by using these details they were able to create accurate scenes of the material world at the time. A main contributor of the movement was Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. In the middle of the 1400s, she did a portrait for the wealthy Giovanni Arnolfini. The image depicted Arnolfini and his wife standing inside of their home. Jan van Eyck was able to exemplify the wealth of the couple by incorporating objects into the image such as the golden chandelier, the expensive drapes and curtains, and the expensive clothing the man and woman are wearing. All the expensive objects exemplified the materialist world the people were living in at the time. Jan van Eyck also used exquisite detail when creating the face of Arnolfini, such detail was relatively new to the time. Throughout the painting are various religious objects since religion was very characteristic of the Renaissance movement. In the background of the image, religious beads can be seen as well as the
large mirror, which was meant to represent the all seeing of God. The painting was a very brilliant portrait but Jan van Eyck was also smoothly incorporated his wife and his home without taking away the focus of Arnolfini. However although the image was a spectacular portrait Jan van Eyck was also able to use the background image in order to depict the materialism of the time, by incorporating the expensive objects of the home. Although both of the two images are from different times and both exhibit different art styles of different movements, they share the same focus and idea, a focus that revolved around the materialism of the times. Each of the two pieces of art depicts a couple inside of their homes. Each of the two homes is composed of various material goods as well as many expensive luxuries. By incorporating these items into the images, it exemplified the material world that the two artists were living in at the time. Even though the two images share, the same ideas the artwork was created very differently. First off the two are different because Jan van Eycks was a painting whereas Richard Hamilton’s was a collage. Hamilton had created his collage by taking various images from already created works of art as well as media. He then incorporated these images to create an image of his own. Unlike Hamilton, Jan van Eyck created her image completely from scratch created a completely original image. Also Jan van Eyck also created her image as a portrait of Arnolfini and his wife, whereas Hamilton created his image more to satirize the times and ideas of the people.