Abstract
This essay employs a visual analysis to compare and contrast Andy Warhol’s ‘Blue Marilyn’ with Roy Lichtenstein’s ‘In the Car’ in association to the postmodernist theme of Consumer Culture and more explicitly, the introduction of Pop Art, born from post-war consumerist societies. The argument refers to eight scholarly research sources, three of which are scholarly journal articles.

POSTMODERNITY AND CONSUMERISM:
WIT, INVENTION AND THE AFTERMATH OF WAR

Research Statement: Using a visual analysis, compare and contrast Andy Warhol’s Blue Marilyn with Roy Lichtenstein’s In the Car in association to the postmodernist theme of Consumer culture and more explicitly the introduction of Pop Art; born through post-war materialisation.

The Postmodernist Cannon of the latter twentieth and twenty-first Century Art is a crucial anthology, signifying radical and innovative movements that differentiated from Modernist art practices. It signifies a period of time whereby practitioners sought to contradict the rebellious experimentational aspects of Modernist art through re-visioning and revitalising media to fit the metamorphosing culture. Incorporated within the Cannon were several movements that were heavily influenced by the rise of Consumer cultures, dictated by the post-war explosion of advertisement in the 1950’s, compelling practitioners to manipulate and transform their style in either awe of the perpetually adapting society or in rebellion towards the mass produced Consumer culture that had been born. Two leading postmodernist practitioners, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, established their own subjective reactions and interpretations of the consumer society that encased them, both accepting the shifting environment and challenging social structures.
Warhol was an America practitioner whom explored the associations concerning artistic expression, celebrity culture and advertisement that flourished in the 1960’s, with the opinion that post-war consumerism democratised the goods in America. Likewise, American Pop Artist, Roy Lichtenstein, defined the basic premises of Pop Art through parody, favouring the ideals of comic strips with the belief that the ever-evolving consumer society brought a new meaning to industrial painting.
In pursuit of the artists affiliations concerning the postmodernist theme of Consumer culture, two of their most recognised pieces, Blue Marilyn and In The Car will be compared and contrasted, discussing the visual elements and principles that are indicative of a Consumer culture in each work.
Warhol and Lichtenstein together were heavily influenced by the adapting consumerist culture, as the introduction of advertisement and mass-produced goods precipitously surrounded urban society, thus inclosing them into the indulgences of consumerism despite their intentions. In reaction to the booming consumerist market, they provided a mutual response to the post-war propagation of mass produced goods such as household appliances, the automobile, packaged products and the growth of popular entertainment, similarly sharing associative traits and visual outcomes through comparable characteristics, aesthetics and practices to thus exhibit an interest in the growth of consumerism. They together exploited new interpretations of pre-existing figures of advertisement and popular culture through appropriation, formal qualities and sign-values as characterised by Jean Baudrillard.
A key common resemblance that can be noted between the two practitioners compositions is the employment of appropriation, a post-modern technique that as Rex Butler (cited in Baselitz 2012, p. 2) argues, is a tribute to the “originals lasting power” and acts as a translation to converse familiarity through the models of pre-existing compositions. Roland Barthes, writer of ‘The death of the Author’ (cited in Van Camp, 2007) pronounces that, traditional concepts of creativity are nearly impossible in an age of technological revolution and easy replication. In Warhol’s instance, Blue Marilyn takes possession of the subject matter sourced from found photographs in magazines and newspapers and is transferred onto screen photos mechanically in which resulted in “…a fairy crude…grainy & strongly contrasting effect, reminiscent of newspaper images” (Bigham et al. 2007, p. 54). Moreover, considering how distorted Warhol interpreted the appropriated photographs through silk screening, Marilyn as a celebrity figure, is still instantly recognisable. Alike Warhol, Lichtenstein too sourced his material not from the “pages of a superhero comic book, but rather from the trite, shop-worn dramas of Secret Heats, Girls’ Romances and All American Men of War” (Wilmerding et al. 2007, p. 56). However, he rehabilitated the comic, increasing the scale dramatically and removing items of disinterest to compel the audience to rely on the solitary image, allowing them to interpret the relationship between the two individual’s portrayed. This re-adjustment from the original as Rosenblum (cited by Wilmerding et al. 2007, p. 56-57) argues, positioned Lichtenstein as a fundamental pragmatist who embraced not merely the content, but furthermore the manner of popular imagery as a method of revitalising the declining mannerisms of abstract art.
Along with the combined use of appropriation, both Warhol and Lichtenstein employ the use of signs to comment on the materialised surroundings that enclosed them. It can be noted that Theorist, Jean Baudrillard, analytically deliberated how objects are encrypted with an arrangement of signs and denotations that comprise within modern media and consumer cultures and links societies demand not for commodities as such, but for objects consumed for their image or their sign-value (The Times 2007). In relation to Baudrillard’s theory, analogously, In the Car and Blue Marilyn depict consumerist representations of signs and symbols through visual elements and principles to draw the audience into a world flooding with consumer abundance. As Lichtenstein possesses the portrayal of the automobile within the comic In the Car, he, according to Baudrillard’s theory, is displaying sign-values of power and superiority, two signifiers in which consumerist society acquire as a fundamental social image. Additionally, it can be noted that the man and the women are dressed in particularly smart attire, the woman wearing a leopard fur coat and pearl earrings and the man wearing a perfectly tailored suit. These costumes that mask their dispositions display sign-values of wealth and immodesty, although viewed by a consumerist society as high-class and desirable. Similarly, Blue Marilyn displays the sign-value of Marilyn Monroe as a celebrity figure and henceforth portrays signs of beauty and fame, two traits that the consumerist cultures strive to achieve as a form of proving or identifying class status.
Within Baudrillard’s theory, deriving that meaning is discovered through a system of signs, each composition further shares conceptions of parallel colour palettes, initiating tones of blue, red and yellow in block colours to signify the inner sensations between art and the commodity culture. In Blue Marilyn’s instance, the floating use of solid colours denotes the superficiality of her Hollywood persona, which John Walker (2003, p. 23) argues denotes “the mask that concealed the sadness which led to her suspected suicide” (Bigham et al. 2007, p. 54). While the block colours portrayed in In the Car symbolises the tense, histrionic representation of an idealistic romance between a gentleman and a woman to consequently comment on the consumerist societies bogus ideations of romance. The consistency and power within the two works not only withdraws from the colour however, Warhol and Lichtenstein together depict audacious black outlines to create dimensionality and audacity. Lichtenstein transforms the lines used on the original comic strip from Girls’ Romances from the portrayal of glass windows and gestural movements to simple conceptual borders, highlighting the images geometric forms and thus reinforcing the dynamic symmetry of consumerist materialism. We are therefore drawn less towards the story of the composition and more towards the visual aesthetics employed in the comic strip. As Bigham et al. (2007, p.32) establishes in the writing of In the Car,
Lichtenstein simplified the lines and colour further, separating the pigment dots and emphasising areas of abstract colour. For Example, the man is blue haired and blue suited while the woman has yellow hair and a yellow coat. In this way the couple’s psychological separation, indicated by their body language, is further emphasised, and the artists particular interest in form, shape and colour are made evident.

Similarly, Warhol depicts the use of silhouette lines and shapes to convey a sensation of the frenetic pace and consumerism of life in a modern capitalist state, making comment on the lack of individuality and personality that derived from the consumerist paradigm.
Blue Marilyn and In the Car may parallel in diverse expanses combining similarities in the practitioner’s interpretations of post-war consumerist cultures; nevertheless, multiple contrasting disparities can be noted through Warhol’s and Lichtenstein’s visual, physical and symbolical aesthetics.
Although not entirely observable, the most predominant dissimilarity between Blue Marilyn and In the Car lies amongst the artist’s intentions and affiliations. It is possible to recognise through the visual aesthetics of each composition the disparities in emotional configuration, while Warhol disguises within Blue Marilyn the “dispassionate treatment of images of fame and death as interchangeable signs” (Dan, et al 1991, p. 14), Lichtenstein studies formality and emotional reticence within humour and parody. This twist from the seriousness of death and celebrity departure in Warhol’s Blue Marilyn to a light comical plays on emotion and romance in Lichtenstein’s In the Car underlines the artist’s varying visions and interpretations revolving around the increasingly apparent consumer culture. The incorporation of the automobile as a materialistic artefact also reinforces Lichtenstein’s interest in a high social image to project class status, while the portrayal of the celebrity in Blue Marilyn reinforces his apparent vision of sensitivity towards the camouflaged personalities of celebrities.
A noticeable contrasting factor between Blue Marilyn and In the Car is the depiction of motion or movement within the compositions. This can be seen through the artist’s use of line and structure as Lichtenstein employs horizontal and vertical lines to convey the automobile cruising through the streets with the top down and their hair in the wind, while Blue Marilyn’s stillness and photographic like structure sends off connotations of pure immobility and silence in which Warhol argued displayed her insecurity and unhappiness in a demanding consumerist society.
Another contributing factor enhancing the dissimilarities amid Blue Marilyn and In the Car is the dissemblance in textures and artistic methodologies. Lichtenstein’s famous use of Benday Dots is apparent in In the Car, to which many critics perceived as a “satirical send-up of Abstract Expressionism” (Wilmerding et al. 2007, p. 57). This technique comprises of the combination of coloured dots and optical illusion, to from the comical manifestation of the composition and thus result in an industrial texture, proving his indulgences in the consumer society. In comparison to Blue Marilyn, Warhol’s intentional simplistic printing technique, often resulting in smudged, highly contrasting compositions, emphasises the mass-produced source from which post-war consumer proliferation brought to society.
It can be distinguished that all of the discussed contrasting visual elements enhance the geometric and organic structures within each of the compositions. While In the Car is heavily structured by geometric lines, leading the eye through the consumerist narrative and hinting at the mechanical traits of the automobile, Warhol’s Blue Marilyn depicts organic shapes and figures, detailing the naturalist demeanours of the human figure to thus interpret Marilyn as a iconic identity being dehumanised by the unoriginality of the materialised culture. As quoted by Marilyn Monroe before her tragic suicide, “I hate just being a thing” (cited in Bigham et al. 2007, p. 54) in which fortifies the pressure that the Consumer culture demanded upon her with disinterest in her as an individual but rather as a commodity.

In summary, Andy Warhol’s Blue Marilyn and Roy Lichtenstein’s In the Car share various dissimilarities yet primarily associate physically, visually and symbolically in relation to the postmodern theme of Consumer culture. Using a visual analysis, the elements and principles of each work were justified, creating an in-depth analysis of the artist’s intentions and affiliations. It can be noted that whilst Warhol re-enacts through Blue Marilyn his uppermost interest in the indulgences of the apparent consumer society; Lichtenstein too wraps himself in the consumerist blanket, presenting works such as In The Car to highlight societies demand for materialistic, socially desired items such as the automobile to show off their class status. This paralleled interpretation of post-war society is revealed and regenerated through their works, underpinning their acceptance towards the shifting environment and fluctuating social statuses.
In regards to the postmodernist consumer paradigm; Warhol’s sentimental value as with Lichtenstein’s comical play similarly reveal the same outlook towards postmodern methodologies of appropriation, juxtaposition and sign-value, with the belief that the independent expression of the postmodern practitioner could nevertheless rationalise the utopian conceptions of a consumer society, “reinforcing an ethos of commodification in art and consumption in the wider society” (Clark, 1993).