Reverie by Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein was an American artist who was an influential part of the Pop Art movement in the 1960s. Roy Lichtenstein was born in New York in 1923 and he has created some of the most well-known Pop Art paintings and artworks. An example of his artwork is “Reverie”, it is a screen print by Roy Lichtenstein in 1965 in his iconic comic strip art style. “Reverie” by Roy Lichtenstein shows social commentary of mass production through the art movement it’s in, the technique used, the subject matter.

“Reverie” is an example of an artworks that is part of the Pop Art movement. Pop Art developed in the early 1960s as a response to abstract expressionism. It was originally a British movement in the mid 1950s but it became a movement that became a social commentary on the mass-production and unoriginality of the culture in America. Artists in the movement used images or production techniques of everyday consumer life in America. In Lichtenstein ‘s case, he mimicked the style of comics in a way in which it seems to be made by a machine and not by hand, such technique is presented in “Reverie”. Pop Art glorified the everyday, making everyday objects and subjects into high art. It used commercial art as subject matters in painting. Pop art called attention to consumer projects as it mimicked the increasing advertisements, but it also served to glorify them as idealized images of contemporary culture. Pop art, according to Lichtenstein, was art that looks out into the world, appears to accept its environment, which is not good or bad, but different. He gets questions such as “how can you like exploitation”, “how can you like the complete mechanization of work?”, and “how can you like bad art?” His answer is that he just accepts it being there, in the world. (Coplans, 52-53) The pop art movement was documenting American culture as it was at the time, without necessarily opposing it but accepting it as it is, whether is was the good or the bad. However, artists of this movement such Lichtenstein wanted viewers to be aware that advertising and the production and consumption cycle has come to dominate their lives. The legacy of pop art was the union of art and pop culture. Art was no longer from high-culture sources such as literature, mythology, or religion but from pop culture like television, music, and advertisement.

“Reverie” references to one of the most popular song in America, “Stardust”, through the lyrics used in the artwork. The artwork is of a headshot of a blonde woman staring off into the distance, with a speech bubble with music notes and lyrics saying “the melody haunts my reverie”. Lichtenstein was a fan of jazz music so he decided to make an painting based on the popular jazz song. “Stardust” was composed in 1927 by Hoagy Carmichael with added lyrics by Mitchell Parish in 1929. It is one of the most recorded pop tune in history with over a thousand versions. It wasn’t just a popular song, it permeated America’s pop culture thoroughly. The song was widely used in the pop culture such as in movies and television shows. The song took a popularity on its own and became a legacy. Music was a big part of pop culture and “Reverie” shows that through a woman singing the lyrics. Lichtenstein often portrayed women as concerned with love and marriage and in “Reverie” the woman seems to be daydreaming about something, maybe about love. The lyrics, “the melody haunts my reverie”, used in the context of the artwork mean that the melody of the song disturbed the woman’s daydreams and she does look like she’s day dreaming since she is staring off into space.

“Reverie” was almost imitating the way a machine might print out an image. Lichtenstein’s art style used the style of comic strips which included bright colours, single scenes, dialogue balloons, and Ben Day dots. He depicted a world of prepackaged emotions, which is parallel to the mass produced, prepackaged consumer products that were also main subjects of Pop Art artworks. Lichtenstein has very careful technique when creating his paintings to create the message it conveys. Lichtenstein has very careful technique when creating his paintings. When Lichtenstein works from a photograph or a cartoon, he draws a picture small enough to fit his opaque projector in order to project the picture he drew on his canvas before he paints. Even though when he’s working from other people’s works, he draws the picture to recompose it instead of to just reproduce it. Sometimes he works with more than one cartoon and combines them, either completely copying the style or making it up, depending on the projects and plays around with he drawing until he’s satisfied. He stencils the dots that’s his artworks are known for first for technical reasons, then starts colouring from lightest colours to darkest which are the thick bold outlines. He will keep erasing, redrawing, and re-dotting his artwork until he is satisfied. He tends to make a lot of changes in the process of paining so he uses in Magna colours which is soluble in turpentine so it’ll be easy to completely erase the paint off. The reason for this is so that no there will no record of any changes he has made. His goal is to make his works looks as if it has been programed, even though his painting his all down by hand as it gives him most control. However, his particular technique is to hide the fact that his art works are done by hand. Afterwards, he takes his full size works to a factory to make copies from using cutout stencils of his works. (The Tate Gallery, 11) Lichtenstein’s style and technique itself brings the meaning and message in his artworks as the style replicates a machines that were being used to mass produce products.

In conclusion, “Reverie” by Roy Lichtenstein was an example comment on society through the Pop Art movement, method and meaning behind the artwork. It is an artwork very obviously recognized as Lichtenstein’s art style and is easily recognized as part of the Pop Art movement. The reason is because Lichtenstein’s tried to replicate a machine’s kind of art style, representing the increase in mass production in the 1960s because of industrialization. His style and way of using Ben Day dots, clean bold lines, and solid colour in a way that hides any clues that gives away the fact that the artwork was done by hand and not a machine. The artwork comments on the mass production and consumer society of the 1960s. It also was the union of art and popular culture. “Reverie” used music as the main subject in the artwork to represent part of the pop culture in the 1960s.

Bibliography

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Roy Lichtenstein. London: The Tate Gallery, 1968. Print