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Drowning Girl

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Drowning Girl
ArtistRoy Lichtenstein
Year1963
TypePop art
Dimensions171.6 cm × 169.5 cm (67.625 in × 66.75 in)
LocationMuseum of Modern Art, New York City

Drowning Girl is a 1963 oil and Magna on canvas pop art painting by Roy Lichtenstein that uses his classic Ben-Day dots and a speech balloon. It was derived from a panel of a 1962 D.C. Comics publication. The work has been part of Lichtenstein's romance-comics sourced series of "Girls". It is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City since 1971.

Background

Tony Abruzzo's panel from "Run For Love!" in Secret Hearts, no. 83 (November 1962) was the source for Drowning Girl.

Drowning Girl was derived from Tony Abruzzo's panel from "Run For Love!" in Secret Hearts, no. 83 (November 1962), D.C. Comics.[1] According to the Lichtenstein Foundation website, the painting was part of Lichtenstein's second solo exhibition at Leo Castelli Gallery from September 28 — October 24, 1963 that included Torpedo...Los!, Baseball Manager, and Whaam!.[2] The Museum of Modern Art acquired the work in 1971.[3] The Museum of Modern Art's page for this work on its website explains this work's acquisition as follows: "Philip Johnson Fund (by exchange) and gift of Mr. and Mrs. Bagley Wright".[4]

Detail

Although the changes are not regarded as significant,[5] Lichtenstein made several notable changes from the original source: "In the original illustration, the drowning girl’s boyfriend appears in the background, clinging to a capsized boat. Lichtenstein cropped the image dramatically, showing the girl alone and encircled by a threatening wave. He changed the caption from 'I don’t care if I have a cramp!' to 'I don’t care!' and the boyfriend’s name from Mal to Brad."[4] When discussing another work (I Know...Brad), Lichtenstein stated that the name Brad sounded heroic to him and was used with the aim of cliched oversimplification.[6]

Narrative content was in the forefront of much of Lichtenstein's work as a way to engage the viewer.[7] Measuring 171.6 cm × 169.5 cm (67.625 in × 66.75 in), Drowning Girl presents "a young woman who seems to have cried herself a river...literally drowning in emotion." The melodrama makes it clear that she has been hurt by a "Brad", the name given to several of Lichtenstein's heroes.[8]

Lichtenstein admits that this wave is adapted from Hokusai's famous painting, The Great Wave off Kanagawa.[9]

The subject's head appears to rest on a wave as if it were a pillow and lies in the water as if it were a bed, creating a blend of "eroticism and final resting place".[10] The painting is representative of Lichtenstein's affinity for single-frame drama that reduces the viewer's ability to identify with it and that abstracts emotion. His use of industrial and mechanical appearance further trivialize the sentiments.[11] Picasso's depictions of weeping women may have influenced Lichtenstein to produce portrayals of vulnerable teary-eyed women, such as the subjects of Hopeless (1963) and Drowning Girl (1963).[12] This is an example of Lichtenstein's post-1963 comics-based women that "...look hard, crisp, brittle, and uniformly modish in appearance, as if they all came out of the same pot of makeup." [13]

In the early 1960s, Lichtenstein produced several "fantasy drama" paintings of women in love affairs with domineering men causing women to be miserable, such as Drowning Girl, Hopeless and In the Car. These works served as prelude to 1964 paintings of innocent "girls next door" in a variety of tenuous emotional states.[14] "In Hopeless and Drowning Girl, for example, the heoroines appear as victims of unhappy love affairs, with one displaying helplessness...and the other defiance (she would rather drown than ask for her lover's help)."[15]

The image is typical of Lichtenstein's depiction of comic subjects responding to a situation in a cliched manner.[16] The waves are intended to "recall Hokusai as well as the biomorphic forms of Arp and Miro;"[17] just as the source comics were intended to.[18] The adaptation of the wave print is said to add a decorative look and feel to the painting, without which the work might be much more alarming to the viewer.[9] Lichtenstein stated the following about this work:

In the Drowning Girl the water is not only Art Nouveau, but it can also be seen as Hokusai. I don't do it just because it is another reference. Cartooning itself sometimes resembles other periods in art – perhaps unknowingly... They do things like the little Hokusai waves in the Drowning Girl. But the original wasn't very clear in this regard—why should it be I was it and then pushed it a little further until it was a reference that most people will gett...it is a way of crystallizing the style by exaggeration.

— Sources, [19][20]

Critical review

Lichtenstein was made Drowning Girl a cornerstone of his career because of "His extraordinary sense of organization, his ability to use a sweeping curve and manipulate it into an allover pattern..."[21] The work is described as "A mix of cliché, melodrama, pathos, and absurdity..."[22] The result of this work is described as "a remarkably impassive style".[23]

Notes

  1. ^ Waldman, pp. 118–119.
  2. ^ "Chronology". Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. Retrieved 2012-05-09.
  3. ^ Lanchner, Carolyn (2009). Roy Lichtenstein. Museum of Modern Art. p. 3. ISBN 9780870707704.
  4. ^ a b "Drowning Girl: Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923–1997)". Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 2012-05-23.
  5. ^ Waldman. p. 113. In both Hopeless and Drowning Girl, for example, Lichtenstein felt it unnecessary to make more than the most minimal changes to the comic=book panels on which he modeled them. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  6. ^ Coplans (ed.). p. 110. Well, I had the idea of 'The Hero' Brad. 'Brad' sounded like a hero to me, so all heroes were to be called Brad—a very minor idea, but it has to do with oversimplification and cliché. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  7. ^ Waldman. p. 63. Lichtenstein achieved an unusual effect by utilizing text as a dominant feature of the work. Rather than using language as just an accessory to the visual motif, he forced a direct confrontation between the spectator and the message contained within the narrative. While the viewer can be passive in front of an image, it is far more difficult to remain that way when the narrative is sufficiently large enough and aggressive enough so that it encroaches upon the audience's mental space and challenges the spectator to react. Dramas as engrossing as those that were presented on radio and TV or in the movies court a response as the spectator reads:...'I Don't Care! I'd Rather Sink – – Than Call Brad For Help!' (fig. 106). These emotional outbursts are in marked contrast to the coolness of the technique, a contrast that Lichtenstein emphasizes. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  8. ^ Hendrickson, Janis (1993). "The Pictures That Lichtenstein Made Famous, or The Pictures That Made Lichtenstein Famous". Roy Lichtenstein. Benedikt Taschen. p. 34. ISBN 3-8228-9633-0. The Drowning Girl (Ill. p. 31) (1963) shows a young woman who seems to have cried herself a river. She is literally drowning in emotion and has abandoned herself to its destructive forces. Brad, the name of the man involved with several of Lichtenstein's "heroines", must have hurt her badly.
  9. ^ a b Hendrickson, Janis (1993). "The Pictures That Lichtenstein Made Famous, or The Pictures That Made Lichtenstein Famous". Roy Lichtenstein. Benedikt Taschen. p. 34. ISBN 3-8228-9633-0. Lichtenstein conceded that this wave was adapted from the Japanese artist Hokusai's famous wave print, which may account for its decorative look. Otherwise, the entire situation is disconcertingly sudden and extreme.
  10. ^ Hendrickson, Janis (1993). "The Pictures That Lichtenstein Made Famous, or The Pictures That Made Lichtenstein Famous". Roy Lichtenstein. Benedikt Taschen. p. 34. ISBN 3-8228-9633-0. She is lying in the watere as if it were a bed, a mixture of eroticism and final resting place.
  11. ^ Hendrickson, Janis (1993). "The Pictures That Lichtenstein Made Famous, or The Pictures That Made Lichtenstein Famous". Roy Lichtenstein. Benedikt Taschen. p. 34. ISBN 3-8228-9633-0. Lichtenstein enjoyed presenting the single-frame climax of a situation, since it reduced the viewer's ability to identify with the crisis and abstracted its emotive force.
  12. ^ Schneider, Eckhard, ed. (2005). Roy Lichtenstein: Classic of the New. Kunsthaus Bregenz. p. 142. ISBN 3-88375-965-1. Being reminded of Picasso's portrayals of weeping women may have catalyzed and heightened his own response toward a thematic impulse that had lain dormant. There is no doubt that comic-strip panels of overwrought women – the tear-drenched Hopeless (1963) and Drowning Girl (1963), for example, are indisputably based on panels in DC comics - have their compositional basis in illustrations in romance comics, and they remain humourous on account of their corny and childish dialogue. But seeing Picasso's work so directly in front of him could have been a strong reminder of how powerful such a troubling subject was.
  13. ^ Coplans (ed.). p. 23. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  14. ^ Waldman. p. 113. In other paintings by Lichtenstein, women are engaged in a series of fantasy dramas. Hopeless (fig. 104), Drowning Girl (fig. 106), and In the Car (fig. 103), all from 1963, and We Rose Up Slowly (fig. 108), 1964, revolve around love affairs in which the men are clearly in control and the women are usually depicted as miserable. These paintings set the state for a series of "girls" in various states of apparent anxiety, nervouseness, or fear, most of whom are portrayed as "the girl next door" or the innocent seductress, as in Blonde Waiting (fig. 112), Oh, Jeff...I Love You, Too...But... (fig. 111), Good Morning Darling, and Seductive Girl, all from 1964. The women protagonists in these dramas enact scenes filled with fabricated emotions. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  15. ^ Waldman. p. 113. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  16. ^ Coplans (ed.). p. 15. Lichtenstein's lovers and heroes are full of pathos and at the same time, ironically, fully exposed in their shallowness. They reveal themselves to be programmed: Each responds to a give situation with standard modes of behavior typical of the American culture, whether it is the girl who has quarreled with her lover or is about to tearfully drown (Drowning Girl, 1963)... {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  17. ^ Coplans (ed.). p. 26. ...the form of the waves in Drowning Girl are reconstructed to recall Hokusai as well as the biomorphic forms of Arp and Miró... {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  18. ^ Coplans (ed.). p. 91. I often transfer cartoon style into art style. For example, the Art Nouveau, flames at the nozzle of the machine gun. It is stylistic way of presenting the lights and darks. In the Drowning Girl the water is not only Art Nouveau, but it can also be seen as Hokusai. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  19. ^ Madoff, Steven Henry, ed. (1997). "Focus: The Major Artists". Pop Art: A Critical History. University of California Press. p. 202. ISBN 0-520-21018-2.
  20. ^ Waldman. p. 75. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  21. ^ Waldman. p. 75. His extraordinary sense of organization, his ability to use a sweeping curve and manipulate it into an allover pattern, encompassing waves, hair, and even the text balloon, transformed the initial subject into a major image. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  22. ^ Morgan, Ann Lee (2007). The Oxford Dictionary of American Art and Artists. Oxford University Press. p. 282. ISBN 978-0-19-512878-9. A mix of cliché, melodrama, pathos, and absurdity, Drowning Girl (Museum of Modern Art, 1963) presents a close-up of the composed but tearful face, chic dark-blue hair, and elegantly gesturing hand of a young woman foundering in stylishly drawn waves. Her thoughts appear in a balloon: "I don't care! I'd rather sink—than call Brad for help."
  23. ^ Fineberg, Jonathan (1995). Art Since 1940: Strategies of Being. Harry N. Abrams. p. 263. ISBN 0-8109-1951-6.

References

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