British Pop Art versus Nouveau Realisme - Essay Example

Teacher 12 October 2007 British Pop Art versus Nouveau Realisme Introduction Pop Art and Nouveau Realisme are two styles of exhibition art that emerged from a similar artistic standpoint and consequently formed themselves into two similar genres. Both are forms of modern art that are said to have grown out of the abstract art of their day; regardless of this initial connection, however, artists within both the Pop Art and Nouveau Realisme categories maintain that their work springs from a need to counterbalance the abstract art being presented. Popular artists like Allan Jones and Yves Klein worked to incorporate what they felt were real and current images and realities into their pieces; the differences in their art marked the differences in the two genres. While Pop Art aimed to use popular imagery to essentially mimic life up the minute, Yves Klein and the founders of Nouveau Realisme used existing images to portray a different look at the current world. It is a common misconception that the two areas of art are in fact the same movement founded in different parts of Europe; British Pop Art focuses on showing current life using current imagery and style such as in comic books and television, Nouveau Realisme instead incorporates common imagery that exists in all aspects of life instead of merely popular culture. Pop Art Pop Art emerged in 1950's Britain and quickly took root in America and other parts of the world as well (Harrison 50). The style formed in response to abstract; the latter being considered an overdone, muddled interpretation of reality by many artists who desired to create art that could be more easily appreciated by the masses. The fact was that with abstract art, audiences and different artists like Allan Jones felt that the works being produced were supportive of elitism (Moore-Gilbert 272-274). Small, trendy art audiences would attend gallery openings, discuss the paintings and in most cases were encouraged to think of themselves as a privileged bunch who were able to see through the ambiguous artwork to the 'true meaning' (Addison and Burgess 115). To take down this elitist mentality that was rampant in the world of art, Pop Artists decided to show their own interpretations of the world in a clear, concise manner that could be appreciated by the average person on the street. The object of Pop Art was to do just as its name suggested: to take images, techniques and styles from popular culture and use them in the creation of new works of art (Mattick 138). Artists admitted for the first time that they were actually targeting a larger audience than was usual, and in doing so hoped to bring an appreciation of their work to the masses instead of to a small elite group. The artists involved in this movement theorised that if direct reference was made to popular culture and imagery in the art itself, then people who usually were not interested in artistic interpretation would find themselves drawn into the work. By using popular culture as the basis for the artwork, artists felt that they had a better chance of getting into the minds of the common people and encouraging them to think about their world and the messages that might be behind the art. A major factor of British Pop Art was its tendency to emphasize those aspects of the British culture that were considered mundane or banal (Chilvers 305). Artists who used different styles thought that the artwork portrayed a mindlessness inherent in British society; others thought it showed nothing more than a breakdown of art itself from an intellectual philosophical form of expression to the expression of common ignorance. Perhaps inadvertently, Pop Artists were renewing the old ties of realism to the art world after the abstract phase and because of this many other artists have been inspired to create art using unorthodox methods and imagery. Whatever the actual effect of Pop Art on its audience, the fact remains that its creators were seeking a way out of what they viewed as an abstract trap; they wished to engage the public and the best way they saw to achieve this was to do so with the images and culture that the public saw each and every day (Alloway 156). The methodology was very simple: advertising, television, movies, comic books and any other well-known household brand or item might be used to bring self-awareness to the common man. In using these objects as a mirror to the British citizenry, Pop Artists essentially were striving to achieve what most other abstract artists were doing in a different way (Painter 110). Nouveau Realisme Nouveau Realisme is an art form born in the 1960's and first conceived of by art critic Pierre Restany and French painter Yves Klein (Hughes 312). The two recruited several other artists, painters and sculptors among them, and formed a group that was dedicated to not only a new form of artistic expression but of worldly perception. Klein and his colleagues wanted to view the entire world on a different level than they had previously, and this meant that they were to start incorporating common themes and images into their artwork that could be found in places not usually called upon for artistic inspiration. Pierre Restany probably described Nouveau Realisme best when he said it was a "poetic recycling of urban, industrial and advertising reality" (Restany 76). To artists working within the Nouveau Realisme framework, the entire world itself was an image and it was this fundamental image that they sought to break down into workable pieces and display in new, thought provoking ways. Artists like Dufrene and Rotella became very proficient at the decollage (Sandford 391); a method of breaking up intact images into pieces while still keeping the entire picture whole. The artists felt that it was through a meticulous breakdown of images seen every day that people would stop and start to think about the things that existed in their world. in essence, the name of the style speaks for itself: Nouveau Realisme sought to display a new twist on reality so that audiences would be forced to think about their state of existence. The main goal of Nouveau Realisme art was to bring life and art closer together (Causey 92). Artists working together and individually as part of this artistic movement felt that the rest of the art world was failing in its duty to enlighten the artistic audience. To remedy this, Nouveau Realisme artists sought to dredge up all aspects of life as they viewed it: good and bad, banal and clever (Hughes and Reader 603). Utilizing every facet of the one, dynamic world image, artists like Yves Klein hoped to overcome the stigma that art had no purpose to fill in society, and to show what was essentially hidden right before the eyes of the public: dischord, euphoria, and often negative reflections of consumerism (Higgins 135-138). It was not uncommon for these artists to work collaboratively and display their work on the streets of Paris anonymously. It was their intention that through these displays people could become more aware of their impact on local and global society and start to think differently about how their actions affect those around them. Consumerism was a major target of the Nouveau Realisme campaign, and by using well known advertising slogans and logos the artists were able to expose the frailties of a consumer-driven society. The art was often constructed so that audiences would effectively see their own consumer habits in boldfaced type and have to learn to accept their ways or decide to change. In either case, Nouveau Realisme sought to force its audience to see the world for what it truly was. Similarities between Pop Art and Nouveau Realisme Critics over the past six decades have continually been drawing lines between Pop Art and Nouveau Realisme for the simple fact that superficially speaking, they are quite similar. Both styles require the use of popular imagery to create works of art, and therefore both have employed advertisements, television and popular figures found in politics and movies. It is the nature of these two artistic techniques to incorporate popular images because artists in both genres understood that this is the central driving force in society (Kultermann 220-226). Television, films, radio and graphic literature are all an integral part of culture, but not only that, they are a part of the foundation of culture itself. Using these aspects of imagery in artwork makes sense for artists who wish to tap into modern society and make some real statements. Pop Art and Nouveau Realisme are also highly similar in that they have escaped from an art world rife with producers of abstract works. Where the painters and sculptors in years before the 1950's wished to break art down and soften the edges to allow for the imagination to more fully penetrate the work, Pop Art and Nouveau Realisme focused on real images as a new window into reality. Artists working in both styles understood the power of mass cultural icons and therefore used an existing public knowledge and perception to their advantage. Fundamental Differences Between Pop Art and Nouveau Realisme Similarities aside, these are two fundamentally different styles of artistic expression because of the underlying goals of each. While Pop Art takes images from popular culture to express pure reality, Nouveau Realisme takes images from popular culture as well as every other facet of the world to express reality in such a way as to provoke its audience. Pop Artists wish to appeal to a larger audience, forego elitism in art and basically to present popular imagery in a way that will make people think twice about aspects of their culture that they have stopped noticing due to simple inundation (Lovejoy 74). There are two interconnected manners in which British Pop Art and Nouveau Realisme differ: the scope of cultural images that are used and the intent with which they are reproduced and displayed. British Pop Art focused entirely on the reinterpretation of reality from those images its artists considered to embody culture itself; Nouveau Realisme art centres on the subjugation of banality through a reinterpretation of global images and realities that all form one cohesive picture. Pop Art has been labelled banal in itself and it is clearly the intention of the artists to encompass the simplicity of life through simple popular images and themes. This is a style of art that has been largely accused of superficiality, while Nouveau Realisme has attempted to incorporate many different aspects of current culture and simply uses those images available through mass media and other means because it is those that encompass the entire reality of the world (Gray 22). Conclusions British Pop Art and Nouveau Realisme bear a strong resemblance to one another because of the use of images from popular culture in works done in both styles. Both styles were developed by artists who felt that a shift away from the established regime of abstract art was needed and a more realistic form of expression needed to be reintroduced. Apart from these basic similarities, however, the intention of artists in both styles and the subjects used for interpretive pieces remain fundamentally different. Where British Pop Art was conceived of as a way to essentially cultivate the British culture through popular imagery and re-expose it to the masses, Nouveau Realisme was created as a new way of looking at the entire world and taking artistic images from all facets of life and reality world-wide for their deconstruction in artistic displays. Pop Artists wished to gain a larger audience than what they considered elite artists could do; they wanted the general public to grow an appreciation for art and to give those people the opportunity to look differently at those images constant in their daily lives. The aim of Nouveau Realism art was drawn along similar lines however its real focus was the exposition of global reality through any and all images available on a daily basis, popular culture included. The message from the otherwise similar form of art is fundamentally different in terms of scope. Works Cited Addison, Nicholas and Lesley Burgess (eds.). Issues in Art and Design Teaching. London: RoutledgeFalmer, 2003. Alloway, Lawrence. Topics in American Art since 1945. New York: W. W. Norton, 1975. Causey, Andrew. Sculpture since 1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Chilvers, Ian. A Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Gray, John. Action Art: A Bibliography of Artists' Performance from Futurism to Fluxus and Beyond. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1993. Harrison, Sylvia. Pop Art and the Origins of Post-Modernism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Higgins, Hannah. Fluxus Experience. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Hughes, Alex. Encyclopedia of Contemporary French Culture. London: Routledge, 1998. Kultermann, Udo. The History of Art History. New York: Abaris Books, 1993. Lovejoy, Margot. Digital Currents: Art in the Electronic Age. New York: Routledge, 2004. Mattick, Paul. Art & Its Time: Theories and Practices of Modern Aesthetics. New York: Routledge, 2003. Moore-Gilbert, Bart. The Arts in the 1970's: Cultural Closure. New York: Routledge, 1994. Painter, Colin (ed.). Contemporary Art and the Home. New York: Berg, 2002. Restany, Pierre. Trente ans de Nouveau Realisme (translation). France: La Difference, 1990. Sandford, Mariellen R. Happenings and Other Acts. New York: Routledge, 1995. 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