Roy
Lichtentein (1923-1997) was
an American Pop Art painter, graphic artist
and sculptor, specially known for his large scale representations of
comic art; but today at Cultural Crops we want to debate whether an
artist can be considered as it or not.
Ricard
Gispert: From all Lichtenstein professional career we can only think
of him as an artist for the works in which he is author of all the
material, the ones in which he hasn't borrowed anything from any
comic strip. In all those other cases the artist is the cartoonist,
the comic drawer who had created original contents using his own
technique and stile, different from other comics. It is not totally a
plagiarism because
Lichtenstein does make changes on the artwork,
but it is true that the cartoonist like Irv Novick or Jack Kirby
should take credit for the work. They are the ones who should enjoy
the fame and money.
Guiomar
Sánchez: ‘Good
artists borrow, great artist steal’. It
was said by Picasso that the true genius was to know how to flip what
has already been done, and it could be said
that, perhaps, in art we can never ever speak about “original
content” or at least virgin on form or concept. It will always have
been done before, the primal idea from which the artist starts to
create his own concept will have been conceived before. We have quite
clear examples in the same Picasso with Les
Demoiselles d'Avignon,
“copying” or better said “seizing” from African
masks and Romanesque eyes. This past that moves towards
creation appears also inside artworks, more or less clear, showing
gratitude for the referent, or even a criticism, as for example
Manet's
Balcony,
by Magritte, when Manet had also inspired himself in Goya's balcony.
RG:
Totally agree: gratitude as
a result of admiration or the criticism of an artist justifies the
inspiration in the masters that precede us; but
the difference in Lichtenstein artwork is that he imitates other
artists as a support for his message, not as part of the message. As
you have properly indicate he is not the first author looking at
others' work to keep his own moving forward, and I will even go
further taking as example Miro's
Intérieur
Hollandes
or
Las
Meninas by
Picasso, trully copies of the homonyms artworks, but in this cases
the copy is part of the message: homages
to great
painting masters read under the filters of contemporary
art. However to make an homage to an artist this one must have a
certain fame, but what Lichtenstein does is to take advantage of
other people's work who has less popularity than him without not even
giving an artistic value
to this appropriation.
GS:
It has nothing to do, on my point of view, the
fact that those artist are less popular. Lichtenstein uses comics as
an artistic purpose and, indirectly, involves comic culture, playing
with an everyday element as it was typical in Pop Art. Referencing
again to
Picasso, remembering the famous cubist faces, he extracts this idea
from African masks, the author of those we don't even know who might
be, because that culture doesn't care about authors as mush as we do
in Occident.
RG:
But still the difference between
Picasso and
Lichtenstein is
that the first one extracts an idea from African art, as you have
said,
while the other one copies entirely fragments of comics drawn by
other authors. It is not only an inspiration in other people's work,
even if sometimes he does collages with fragments from various
comics. Another important difference is that any book or Internet
source will explain how the cubist artist based his faces on African
masks, while very few are the sources where it is said in which
authors was based Lichtenstein work, you must feel lucky if you find
a reference to DC Comics. So if we highlight Lichtenstein as an
artist we must do so with Jerry Grandetti, Russ Heath and so many
other comic artists.
GS:
The
fact is,
I think so, comic and its authors had never been considered artists,
but it was seen as a simple entertainment. Lichtenstein artworks push
comic aesthetic to an art level and somehow, even without quoting
their names, is extolling this authors and the symbolism
of comic's world, giving way to a global recognition that they
didn't use to have.
RG: Yes, we can
agree that it extols comic's symbolism, but not the authors, as so
many of them still remain anonymous nowadays. However it is also
true, as you have well indicated, that History of Art feeds itself,
evolving to present new artists ans styles, and seeing it that way
Lichtenstein is a one more piece of this big puzzle that is
contemporary art.
GS:
Well, is perfectly understandable
your position, specially because of the injustice it suppose,
by the artistic institution and society at large, the
treatment received by comic authors, who has been relegated
to the background or even labelled
as simple entertainment. It should be given – or maybe Lichtenstein
should
have done that – a higher treatment to this kind of handwork –
labelling it as art – that has been a referent for great
artists.
#1yearCC
Ricard Gispert
Guiomar Sánchez
