The art of Andy Warhol is a analysis on the condition of society and the obsession with fame and the famous. This included Andy, as he was completely enchanted by the American royalty status of movie stars and celebrities. He was overwhelmed by the power that tv network had over the ordinary person and saw the glowing box as something that was worshiped more often than most people go to church.
His art reflected his belief in that by taking what we may see as just part of our everyday life and showing us how embedded it is in our psyche and in everything that we do. look at the Campbell’s Soup Can art canvas series. Is it just a soup can? Was it a ‘just’ a soup can before Warhol’s works became acclaimed? No, Campbell’s Soup was yet a well popular household name. Did Warhol paint them because it meant something? Warhol stated that the paintings represented nothing. No intent, no concept and no meaning.
Art however is not about the artist’s intention; it is about the receiver’s application of their own meaning. Every decade that goes by, there will be new meanings applied to an artist’s works depending on the events of the age in which they are viewed. Warhol’s artworks could today be viewed as an expose on the condition of our throw away lifestyle. This could even be said about Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe canvas.
As well as a can of the Campbell’s Soup, Marilyn was iconic, soaked her admirer’s with a warm, good feeling and then was recklessly emptied and thrown away. In the great stretch of time, suppose Warhol was accurate, the paintings are of nothing, the soup means nothing and maybe Marilyn was treated by society in the very same way. So many people admire her now, even nowadays. Can a person’s life and accomplishments be consolidated to a acrylic painting that represents nothing?
Warhol’s paintings can absolutely make one think about what the priorities of human race are. The things that we put so much importance on are so fleeting and when they are made larger than life on a acrylic painting, they force us to account our mortality. plenty of Warhol’s artworks were in a way tied very closely to religion.
He created use of gold leaf in the tradition of iconic paintings of Byzantine Catholics. In Gold Marilyn Monroe depicts her iconic status, the affection of her admirers and the sheer lonesomeness of her life. Her face is painted as if she were in a newsprint advertising, another throw away in our lives. Warhol continually brought attention to the fame that affected objects and people to a religious following.
It is hard to make a bold intellectual connection by simply studying a Warhol’s acrylic painting. Only those that yet have a preconceived emotional bond to the subject of his paintings can feel anything from them. They do anyhow, directly invoke a memory, and those memories fire emotions. Looking at Marilyn Monroe in a Warhol acrylic painting can mean nothing to the observer if they have not heard of Marilyn Monroe and her tall story.
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