Andy Warhol – Statue of Liberty

Andy Warhol created his silk display screen painting Statue of Liberty in 1962 using silkscreen ink and spray paint on linen. Just because the title suggests, the painting’s topic is the Statue of Liberty, repeated in a pattern twelve times (not including the proper facet of the portray the place the image repeats four extra occasions, but is minimize off). The portray is currently being exhibited at the Arkansas Arts Center, nevertheless it belongs to the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is comparatively giant at 80 by sixty one inches (that’s bigger than me!).

One should search for at the portray if not standing far enough away to view it in its entirety.

The image that repeats twelve occasions within the painting is that of the Statue of Liberty standing face on, and we view her from her legs up. We are able to see her torch, or a minimal of most of it, and the horizon in the background. The painting is mostly within the cool hue of blue, but not in its normal worth; it could have some green mixed in with it.

In distinction to the blue, there may be the good and cozy hue of pink seen within the high right quarter of the portray. The portray isn’t centered on the linen, but rather somewhat aligned to the proper, so there’s a important quantity of unused or unpainted house on the left aspect. The repetition of the statue’s picture provides the work a sense of unity, whereas the variations between the twelve pictures within the pattern (and there are many) offer selection.

It seems as though the picture of the statue itself isn’t painted for probably the most part, but it should be to a point or it would not be distinguishable, so it have to be a significantly lighter value than the blue that colours in the ocean. The sky in the background is the colour of linen. The blue and/or pink paint (depending on which rectangle it is) fills in the ocean in the bottom two thirds of every rectangular picture. In about three fourths of the rectangles there is a cloud of blue in a darker value than that used on the statue that shrouds the statue’s face and/or torch, stopping us from seeing the entire image clearly. There are two rectangles on the prime proper nook of the work by which red paint is used, if you don’t rely the rectangles to the far proper which are reduce off. Because the painting is aligned to the best, and since the red paint is just used within the rectangles within the prime right nook, there appears to be extra weight on the best and fewer on the left, extra weight on the top and fewer on the bottom. It appears like somebody is pulling the painting up and away by its prime proper corner, like a tissue being pulled out of a tissue box.

The torch the statue holds, though it’s certainly an implied line, surprisingly does not direct my eyes elsewhere. A grid of six implied strains is created by the repetition of the picture. They are in between the 4 columns and 4 rows, unpainted and the color of linen. A line is created where the bluish ocean and the linen-colored sky meet. There are subtle, unstable traces that imply motion in the water behind the statue, more subtly in some rectangles than in others. Besides the shapes I have already described within the painting, the display printing method has left some areas of unpainted linen, particularly in the high row, the place you discover what is nearly a perfect right triangle on the proper facet of the statue. Also, within the third row you discover an natural however otherwise indistinguishable form which slightly resembles a jagged mountain vary. There is mild in each rectangle illuminating the statue and the ocean and modeling the statue’s three dimensions.

The shade value of the repeated picture adjustments from rectangle to rectangle, very clouded in some and very clear in others. Because the face of the Statue of Liberty varies between clearly visible, somewhat visible and entirely coated from rectangle to rectangle, the presentation modifications with each second your eyes moves across the painting. The statue is fastened, offering unity, because regardless of what we are ready or not able to see in any given rectangle, we know it’s the Statue of Liberty. It’s the motion (or the whole disappearance) of the cloud that provides the sample its variety. If symmetrical balance is used to precise order, then this work is barely unbalanced in that regard due to the tissue box impact I talked about earlier. The empty house on the left side of the portray is somewhat balanced by the pink paint within the higher proper nook, but not to the diploma that I would think about asymmetrically balanced.

You might think the cloud-like shape that covers the face of the statue is an effort to either emphasize or subordinate the statue’s face or the torch she holds, however I assume it’s not her face we’re suppose to care about a lot as the truth that she is covered or uncovered in varied ways in an inconsistent manner. The Statue of Liberty is gigantic (I presume, because I even have not seen it myself), however right here its picture is introduced in a shrunken size and then multiplied by twelve. The rectangles are all in correct proportion to at least one one other, and the movement of the cloud of blue creates an overtly even rhythm that envelops the whole piece.

The Statue of Liberty represents greater than I can totally clarify on this paper. The label subsequent to Statue of Liberty talked about that Warhol was an immigrant and used the term ‘generic’ to explain the terms in which Warhol or others could have considered immigration to America (I don’t keep in mind the exact wording. I think the repetition of the image in twelve different rectangles represents the extensive variety of experiences that folks have when immigrating to this country, and the movement of the blue cloud represents the differences amongst experiences. The empty house on the left facet of the portray implies that the perfect Americathe America that immigrants dream of going tois not as all-encompassing as some people may think.

In different phrases, the greatness of the dream falls a bit short in actuality. Warhol has taken the Statue of Liberty, with its hard, clean floor, shrunken it significantly, multiplied it by twelve, and made it exhausting and gritty in every single repetition. His display printing approach leaves a kind of blob overlaying the statue in several areas, and this gives the painting a quality of elusiveness. This elusiveness lends itself to the concept that the general notion of immigration to America is a generic one, and yet it could turn out to be so many alternative things, relying on how a lot cash you’ve and who you know.