Pop Art Movement

4 Pages 973 Words

Pop Art was a visual arts movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s in Britain and the United States of America. The term Pop Art referred to the interest of a number of artists in the images of mass media, advertising, comics and consumer products. Pop Art is an abbreviation of Popular Art, the images used in Pop Art were taken from popular or ‘pop’ culture. Pop art was “a dazzling celebration of life in a world recovering from war.”# Pop art is in some ways hard to define. Pop art does not describe a style but rather a collective term for an artistic phenomena where the works have a sense of being in a particular era. There are however essential characteristics which make artworks part of the Pop Art Movement. These characteristics are the subject matter, forms and media of Pop Art. Pop art was entirely a Western phenomenon, born under capitalist, technological conditions in an industrial society. The epicentre of Pop art was America and as a result the entire western world have become Americanised.# Pop art thrived in big cities. The cities of its birth were New York and London. These two places became the new art centres of the Western World.#

In the post war world of the 1950’s both Britain and America were places of optimism. After the War there was a consumer boom. Exciting new products were pouring out of factories on a massive scale. Mass production meant lower prices so more people could afford these new products. People were enjoying fast cars, fast food, colour television, film, fashion and pop music for the first time. There was a whole range of new products to brighten up these peoples lives. This was the birth of Popular culture. Stores, burger bars and cinemas wanted to draw big crowds. To do this they advertised their products on giant billboards, television screens and magazines. The Pop artists liked these bright images that they saw in the advertisements and realised that by using these i...