Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and the late 1950s in America. It is a visual art movement that combines popular culture with fine art and aims to challenge traditional artistic conventions. Pop art became popular due to its accessible, eye-catching style and subject matter.
The Pop Art movement was led by British artists such as Richard Hamilton, Peter Blake, and Eduardo Paolozzi and American artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Robert Rauschenberg. These artists were influenced by mass media culture, including advertising, television, magazines, and comic books. They focused on popular culture ‘icons’ such as celebrities, movies stars and commercial products that were then reproduced in vivid colours using techniques such as silk-screen printing.
The Pop Art movement was characterized by its irreverent attitude towards traditional ‘high art’. The use of banal everyday objects such as cans of soup or comic book characters made the work accessible to a wider audience than traditional ‘fine art’ movements such as Abstract Expressionism or Surrealism. This appealed to people who felt excluded from the world of high culture; it allowed them to engage with works of art that they could relate to their own lives and experiences.
Pop Art also brought together fine art with industrial design which had previously been seen as separate entities. This helped to bridge the gap between fine art and mass production which made it attractive to a wide range of people who may not otherwise have considered buying artwork or becoming involved in the arts scene.
Pop Art also had a strong connection to consumer culture which made it attractive during this period of post-war economic growth when material goods were more affordable than ever before. The focus on commercial icons like Coca Cola bottles or Campbell’s Soup cans celebrated consumer culture in a way that was both humorous and appealing to people’s sense of nostalgia for simpler times.
The Pop Art movement was also revolutionary in its use of colour; bright vibrant hues combined with its bold graphic style made it stand out from other artistic movements at the time. This helped make it instantly recognizable which further contributed to its popularity among people both inside and outside of the arts world.
Conclusion: Pop Art became popular for a variety reasons including its accessible eye-catching style, subject matter that resonated with people’s everyday lives and experiences, combination of fine art with industrial design, celebration of consumer culture through use of iconic commercial images, revolutionary use of colour and bold graphic style.