Introduction
The 1960s were characterized by the emergence of an emerging art movement that captivated the public with widespread enthusiasm and curiosity. After the Second World War, in response to the appealing world of the leading art school of Western culture, pop art was illustrated in everyday creative products (Galenson, 2021). However, over and above popism, the new artists of the era started to dismantle most of the modern arts’ vital principles and beliefs antagonistically. Andy Warhol was one of the artists in this movement’s leaders, and in the 20th century, later decades became a leading cultural figure. This paper examines Andy Warhol as the king of pop, the various factors that influenced his work, its significance, and its effect on successive generations.
Artistic Factors Which Inspired Andy Warhol’s Career
Artistically, the 20th-century Pop Art Movement inspired Warhol’s career. The times seem to have set the stage for him to depict his works, leading to his paintings leaving a profound impact. This impact was seen in various depictions, including the praise he received from the New York magazine as being the US’s embodiment in the 60s.
The artist is famous for his series featuring products from several brands in the mid to late 20th century. Scholars Samdanis and Lee (2021) assert that Warhol’s depiction of the commodities had a substantial effect. It served to adjust the product images in people’s minds and endow new meanings to the brand.
Before joining his Artistic career, Warhol was a commercial illustrator, possibly building the foundation for the subsequent common link of his world with commercial products (Wainwright, 2022). Upon graduating with a pictorial design degree, Warhol commenced his career as an illustrator with a prominent story drawing that could be found in the 1949 issue of Glamour Magazine. Such success would win him reputable clients, including Vogue and Tiffany & Co. This paved the way for Warhol’s initial bods with the corporate world, artistically blending with the 60’s rise of pop culture and shaping his career.
Social and Political Factors which Inspired Andy Warhol’s Career
The US in the 60s socially blended with the country’s political cold war diplomacy. The culture was key to this social standing and played a vital ideological part. Andy Warhol’s painting Silver Liz found itself key to sending cultural and political messages on post-war American art during the 200 Years of American Painting exhibition. The painting represented a double-paneled portrait with a silver monochrome of Elizabeth Taylor positioned between two abstract works, Helen’s Oasis and Willem de Kooning’s Two Women, each isolated from the other (Wainwright, 2022). The German visitors who had attended the exhibition were sent a message by the painting: of America’s post-war vision as a blending of distinct images emanating from the country’s national cultural-historical context.
This was representative of Warhol’s captivation, with the blurring boundaries between star-studded circles and political stampings, where politicians tend to alter their personalities like chameleons. At the same time, socially, the art depicts an individual known as a popular cultural Icon. Hollywood actress Elizabeth Taylor represented the best national cultural attainment in the US, illustrating America’s cultural greatness in the twentieth century (Wainwright, 2022). Such utilization of art to convey social and political messages served as an inspiration for Andy’s career.
Economic Factors Which Inspired Andy Warhol’s Career
Economically, Warhol was keen to build a reputation and earn money in the post-modern world. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in August 1928, when Pittsburgh was a polluted, rough industrial city with enormous poverty intermixed with inordinate wealth in an unstable social blend. Extreme economic adversity and ethnic and class tensions occasioned decisive and periodic suppression of the disgruntled workers by influential families that ruled the city (Samdanis & Lee, 2021). The environment was not supportive nor welcoming, and later, the artist described the hometown as the worst place he had ever been in his entire life. He was thus eager to pursue economic prosperity, and art gave him this chance.
Spiritual Factors Which Inspired Andy Warhol’s Career
Spiritually, Warhol was raised a catholic and persisted as one in his life. Through a look at his work, it is clear that this religious underpinning is represented. He made numerous art pieces on religious subjects throughout his intricate and busy career, particularly toward his life’s end. His drawings and paintings are founded on the Last Supper by Leonardo and include a great scheme of religious devotion and betrayal (Samdanis & Lee, 2021). Andy plays with camouflage and Day-Glo, juxtaposing Christ’s images with his disciples. All this depicts the role that spirituality played in influencing Warhol’s career.
Psychological Factors That Inspired Andy Warhol’s Career
Warhol’s psychological dynamics are key to his artistic career; he was the youngest child, had blond hair, was small in stature, and was light-skinned. Bodily, he was susceptible, making him a target for peer bullying. In addition, his childhood was characterized by multiple illnesses, and at 9 years old, he was disabled due to a central nervous system disease known as rheumatic fever. The psychological effect of this suffering was evident right from his childhood. Andy would cling to his mother and often refused to leave her, even when it was time to go to school.
The anguish set the stage for a lifelong psychological preoccupation of the artist with his health, sexuality, and body image. Ultimately, this resulted in a bizarre public persona of the artist and an obstinate orientation to the world. Andy was also homosexual, and in a culture where being gay was seen to be hateful and sinful, he was frowned upon and constantly rejected. When he successfully made a persona as an artist and the fame that accompanied the career. Art found a way for him to overcome his adverse psychological effects.
Significant Works by the Artist and Attributes That Influence Successive Generations
Andy’s early commercial illustration was the arena where he initiated his prowess in manipulating prevalent tastes. His works were often whimsical, comical, and decorative. They manifested an imperative novel stage of Pop art in the breakdown amid forms of high and low art: it thus influenced successive artists and societal generations (Ippolito, 2022). Some of the significant works by the artist that can help illustrate conceptual, formal, and technical attributes with which he made his influence are Coca-Cola 3 in Figure 1 and Campbell’s Soup in Figure 2.
Coca-Cola 1
Conceptual, formal, and technical aspects of Coca-Cola 1 can be deduced from Warhol’s statement regarding the image. He asserted that he paints things that he always thought were beautiful and that people use daily while rarely thinking of. His statement is the conceptual epitome of Warhol’s work.
Formally and technically, this is evident in Coca-Cola’s bottle hand-painted portrait (Galenson, 2021). Being 6ft *5ft, the Coca-Cola 1 by Warhol has an identical size to multiple of the times popular canvases but lacks their abstractions. This uniqueness, characterized by lacking concepts, makes them attractive and entices curiosity. Thus, influencing successive generations and society who want to know more about it, the bottle pounces at the viewer, demanding a type of thought-provoking attention.
Campbell Soup 2
When Andy was painting Campbell Soup 2, the country’s art arena was in a ditch. The popular and original arts of the 1940s and 50s had already become a cliché’. Warhol needed to conceptualize his work’s imagery: he thus painted Campbell’s soup cans (Galenson, 2021).
Technically and formally, his work created a visually stimulating and effortlessly recognizable image. At this time, ad imagery and consumer goods flooded American lives with the era’s prosperity. Warhol subtly capitalized on this to recreate the abundance that had influenced successive generations and society.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Andy Warhol perfectly illustrates the Pop art of the post-modern 20th-century movement. He epitomized the 1960s new art movement that enjoyed immense public excitement and interest. Moreover, several social, political, economic, spiritual, and psychological factors influenced his career. Looking at two of Andy’s works, Coca-Cola 1 and Campbell Soup 2, conceptual, formal, and technical attributes that impacted a successive generation of artists and society have been examined.
References
Galenson, D. W. (2021). Revising the canon: How Andy Warhol became the most important American modern artist. Becker Friedman Institute, 2021(14), 2-20. Web.
Ippolito, J. (2022). Crypto-Preservation and the ghost of Andy Warhol. MDPI, 11(47), 2-12. Web.
Samdanis, M., & Lee, S. H. (2021). The emergence of creative leaders within social networks: The case of Andy Warhol in the art world of New York. Frontiers, 12(2021), 4-10. Web.
Wainwright, J. (2022). Translating Warhol for television: Andy Warhol’s America. Journal of Art Historiography, 2-23. Web.