{"id":3367,"date":"2026-06-17T19:25:44","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T19:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/chapter\/art-after-world-war-ii\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T19:01:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T19:01:19","slug":"art-after-world-war-ii","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/chapter\/art-after-world-war-ii\/","title":{"raw":"Art After World War II","rendered":"Art After World War II"},"content":{"raw":"<h2 id=\"chapter-overview-and-introduction-14\">Chapter Overview and Introduction<\/h2>\r\nAfter World War II, several major art styles developed in the United States with New York City flourishing as a new epicenter for art. The first was Abstract-Expressionism. Artists developed two forms of Abstract Expressionism with large-scale canvas designed to envelop the viewer: action painting and color field painting. In response to Abstract-Expressionism, other new styles emerged in the 1960s. This included Pop Art, with its fascination with the rising consumer culture of 1960s America. The other was Minimalism.\r\n<h3 id=\"focus-artworks-14\">Focus Artworks<\/h3>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Jackson Pollock,\u00a0<em>Autumn Rhythm (Number 30)<\/em>, 1950, enamel on canvas<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Willem de Kooning,\u00a0<em>Woman, I<\/em>, 1950\u201352, oil on canvas<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Mark Rothko<em>,\u00a0No. 210\/No. 211 (Orange),\u00a0<\/em>1960, oil on canvas<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Helen Frankenthaler,\u00a0<em>Mountains and Sea<\/em>, 1952, oil and charcoal on unsized, unprimed canvas<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Roy Lichtenstein,\u00a0<em>Look Mickey<\/em>, 1961, oil on canvas<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Andy Warhol,\u00a0<em>Marilyn Diptych<\/em>, 1962, acrylic on canvas<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<h3 id=\"term-list-14\">Term List<\/h3>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Abstract-Expressionism<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Action painting<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Color field painting<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Stain<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Biomorphic<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Pop art<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Silkscreen<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Ben-Day dots<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Minimalism<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<h2 id=\"in-the-united-states-an-introduction-1\">1945\u201380 in the United States, an introduction<\/h2>\r\nSeven miles of traffic backed up the Santa Ana Freeway on a hot July day in 1955. Families in their vehicles baked in the sun while waiting to arrive at the opening of filmmaker Walt Disney\u2019s new California amusement park. The much-anticipated opening of Disneyland brought a crowd connected by popular culture and eager for respectable middle-class entertainment.\r\n\r\nThe freeway that connected them to the park had only recently been built. Freeways and interstate highways throughout the nation connected people to burgeoning suburbs and the promise of the American dream, a peaceful family life, and home ownership.\r\n\r\nInside those homes, families watched television programs that packaged the American middle class lifestyle in cheery and gender-stratified roles. This seemingly simple conformist society quickly gave way to conflicts in the 1960s and 70s that unmasked discontents that lurked behind post-war prosperity.\r\n\r\nIn the summer of 1955, the opening of Disneyland signaled the fictions of the screen come to life. The entire park landscape questioned the division between fantasy and reality, and blurred the lines between history and fairytale.\r\n\r\nDisney\u2019s Main Street USA represented nostalgia for an imagined na\u00efve America before the war, while Tomorrowland optimistically cast technology as the road to national contentment. Lost in this land, Americans suspended their disbelief, entertained their children and themselves, and, as the century progressed, escaped their increasingly complex social and political present.\r\n<h3 id=\"a-new-war\">A new war<\/h3>\r\nEmerging from the conflict of World War II as a dominant power, the U.S. embroiled itself in a new conflict \u2014\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/seeing-america-2\/rothko-no-210-211-orange-sa\/\">the Cold War<\/a>. With the Marshall Plan, the U.S. helped aid recovery in Western Europe and Asia, but the underlying goal, to stop Communist expansion, led to an arms race with the Soviet Union and culminated, in 1962, in an event that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war \u2014 the Cuban Missile Crisis.\r\n\r\nIn attempts to stop Russia and China\u2019s communist models from being replicated, the U.S. engaged in wars in both Korea and Vietnam. Fear of communists at home reemerged as well. Unions were investigated for pro-communist leaders beginning in 1947 and, in 1950, Senator Joe McCarthy investigated suspected spies inside the U.S. government using methods widely seen as an abuse of power.\r\n\r\nThroughout the 1960s, the space race promoted technology as political prowess. The Soviets launched the first man-made satellite of earth, Sputnik, while the U.S. landed the first man on the moon in 1969. But, with the aftermath of the atomic bomb that had ended the world war, Americans in the mid-twentieth century also\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/seeing-america-2\/jess-2\/\">questioned<\/a>\u00a0technology\u2019s impact upon society and the environment.\r\n<h3 id=\"cultural-changes\">Cultural changes<\/h3>\r\nEntering the 1950s, elements of the\u00a0New Deal\u00a0remained strong with many in support of unions and business regulation. As a result, the post-war middle class grew \u2014 as did the population in an unsurpassed \u201cbaby boom\u201d that lasted until the 1960s.\r\n\r\nPresident Dwight D. Eisenhower funded an expansive interstate highway system just as affordable cookie-cutter houses popped up in growing suburban neighborhoods. American dreams of home-owning and the accoutrements of middle class life became more accessible to white Americans who increasing fled from cities. In addition, with the Fair Labor Standards Act and the establishment of a regulated 40-hour work week in most industries and paid leisure time, came the motels, and tourist attractions that began to dot the new highway system.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/seeing-america-2\/warhol-coca-cola2\/\">Consumer culture<\/a>\u00a0depicting this new American lifestyle rapidly spread through television programs and advertisements.\r\n\r\nWith young people newly able to enjoy increasing leisure time, a teenage culture thrived. It rebelled against postwar conformity while simultaneously becoming mainstream and commercially potent. Rock and roll music grew in popularity during this era, with the controversial moves of Elvis Presley ringing in the phenomenon.\r\n\r\nPopular music began to express the feelings, as well as the politics, of the younger generation through performers like Bob Dylan and the Beatles. Hollywood portrayed appealing rebels and \u201cgreasers\u201d while the Beat Generation sought isolation from the reach of popular culture and consumerism.\r\n\r\nThis generation grew to launch protests against unjust politics, racial and gender discrimination, and the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/seeing-america-2\/lipstick-ascending-sa\/\">Vietnam War<\/a>. The countercultural movements of the 1960s and 70s also sought to change attitudes about sexuality, homosexuality, reproductive rights, and divorce.\r\n\r\nWomen who had worked in jobs on the home front while men were fighting World War II, had been pushed back into the domestic realm. In 1963, Betty Friedan expressed the discontent of housewives in the book\u00a0The Feminine Mystique\u00a0and helped found the National Organization for Women. She was among the promotors of the Equal Rights Amendment which ultimately failed to pass \u2014 leaving the legal protection of equal opportunities for women in the hands of other, narrower federal laws, and piecemeal state regulations.\r\n\r\nWith the legalization of contraception and abortion, and the introduction of the Pill, women found they could more easily delay marriage and children to pursue careers. But as the work of the artist\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/ukeles-washing\/\">Mierle Ukeles<\/a>\u00a0makes clear, women continue to struggle in the modern workplace.\r\n<h3 id=\"the-great-society\">The Great Society<\/h3>\r\nWhen\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/seeing-america-2\/winogrand-jfk\/\">John F. Kennedy<\/a>\u00a0was elected president in 1960, he was the youngest to ever serve in that office, and he was the first Catholic to do so. His promise was to build a Great Society that was both democratic and equal.\r\n\r\nBefore his\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/seeing-america-2\/homage-to-jfk-rauschenbergs-retroactive-i\/\">assassination in 1963<\/a>, JFK began pushing federal programs aimed at alleviating poverty and dismantling segregation, as well as introducing Medicare, federal financial aid for education, funding for arts, and environmental protections. Though these plans were ultimately implemented under Lyndon B. Johnson, JFK\u2019s celebrity only grew after his death.\r\n\r\nAmong the legislation that President Johnson pushed forward were the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, marking major victories for the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/benny-andrews-flag-day\/\">civil rights movement<\/a>. The 1950s saw several landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions that were important moves toward\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/seeing-america-2\/a-harlem-street-scene-by-jacob-lawrence-ambulance-call\/\">racial equality<\/a>, but none fully established desegregation. Brown v. Board of Education (1954), for example, ended \u201cseparate but equal\u201d but left implementation to the states where there were often long traditions of racial discrimination.\r\n\r\nMany civil rights leaders, such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., promoted peaceful direct action, such as boycotts and sit-ins, to demonstrate\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/seeing-america-2\/parks-ellison-2\/\">African American resistance to segregation<\/a>, while other civil rights leaders wished for a more radical course of action. Nonviolent tactics, sought to bring awareness through media coverage and political attention, to the plight of their cause, but even peaceful actions were met with violence and arrests by police.\r\n\r\nWhile African Americans had long fought for equal rights through such actions, the protests of the civil rights movement grew to include women,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/seeing-america-2\/seeing-america-smith-state-names\/\">Native Americans<\/a>, LGBT, and other marginalized Americans. The momentum of these movements also helped to galvanize protests to the Vietnam War as people questioned the purpose and the expansion of American involvement in Southeast Asia.\r\n\r\nWhen Richard Nixon took office, he expanded the war beyond Vietnam to the neighboring country of Cambodia, further escalating protests against the war. Demonstrations at Kent State and Jackson State resulted in live fire from the National Guard and police, fueling nationwide protests not just against the war but against the government\u2019s abandonment of the principles of law and order.\r\n<h3 id=\"a-new-reality\">A new reality<\/h3>\r\nIn 1973, cars backed up along roadways not in anticipation of the fantasies of Disneyland but in long lines at gas stations as the oil crisis limited availability of the commodity that fueled twentieth-century America.\r\n\r\nAs the 1970s came to an end, the culture war between conservatives, liberals, and the\u00a0New Left\u00a0simmered. The liberal decades after the Second World War ended with a swing to conservatism signaled by the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.\r\n\r\nWhat had begun as a tranquil era of idealism ended with an awareness that inequality and other injustices had undermined the American dream. Throughout the 1970s, many had become uncertain or discontent with their role in society, unsure of future economic prosperity, and confused about the ethical course of the American political system.\r\n\r\nBut progress had been made. In a blind competition of 1,400 entries, a young Asian American woman won the bid to design the national\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/seeing-america-2\/vvm-sa\/\">Vietnam War Memorial<\/a>. Maya Lin\u2019s design was something entirely new in war memorialization. It honored not generals or leaders or individual faces. Instead, it listed the name of every known individual who had lost their life in the controversial war.\r\n\r\nWith its abstract design and apolitical approach, the memorial symbolized the need for the nation to move beyond the conflicts of the 1970s, even if the root of those conflicts remained largely unresolved.\r\n<h2 id=\"abstract-expressionism-an-introduction\">Abstract Expressionism, an introduction<\/h2>\r\nThe group of artists known as Abstract Expressionists emerged in the United States in the years following World War II. As the term suggests, their work was characterized by non-objective imagery that appeared emotionally charged with personal meaning. The artists, however, rejected these implications of the name.\r\n<h3 id=\"whats-in-a-name\">What\u2019s in a name?<\/h3>\r\nThey insisted their subjects were not \u201cabstract\u201d but rather primal images, deeply rooted in society\u2019s collective unconscious. Their paintings did not express mere emotion. They communicated universal truths about the human condition. For these reasons, another term\u2014the New York School\u2014offers a more accurate descriptor of the group, for although some eventually relocated, their distinctive aesthetic first found form in New York City.\r\n\r\nThe rise of the New York School reflects the broader cultural context of the mid-20th century, especially the shift away from Europe as the center of intellectual and artistic innovation in the\u00a0West. Much of Abstract Expressionism\u2019s significance stems from its status as the first American visual art movement to gain international acclaim.\r\n<h3 id=\"art-for-a-world-in-shambles\">Art for a world in shambles<\/h3>\r\nBarnett Newman, an artist associated with the movement, wrote:\r\n\r\n\u201cWe felt the moral crisis of a world in shambles, a world destroyed by a great depression and a fierce World War, and it was impossible at that time to paint the kind of paintings that we were doing\u2014flowers, reclining nudes, and people playing the cello.\u201d [footnote]Barnett Newman, \u201cResponse to the Reverend Thomas F. Mathews,\u201d\u00a0<em>Revelation, Place and Symbol: Journal of the First Congress on Religion, Architecture, and the Visual Art<\/em>\u00a0(New York, 1969), pp. 129\u201334.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\nAlthough distinguished by individual styles, the Abstract Expressionists shared common artistic and intellectual interests. While not expressly political, most of the artists held strong convictions based on Marxist ideas of social and economic equality. Many had benefited directly from employment in the Works Progress Administration\u2019s Federal Art Project. There, they found influences in Regionalist styles of American artists such as Thomas Hart Benton, as well as the Social Realism of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/mexican-muralism-los-tres-grandes-david-alfaro-siqueiros-diego-rivera-and-jose-clemente-orozco\/\">Mexican muralists<\/a>\u00a0including Diego Rivera and Jos\u00e9 Clemente Orozco.\r\n\r\nThe growth of Fascism in Europe had brought a wave of immigrant artists to the United States in the 1930s, which gave Americans greater access to ideas and practices of European Modernism. They sought training at the school founded by German painter Hans Hoffmann, and from Josef Albers, who left the Bauhaus in 1933 to teach at the experimental\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/black-mountain-college\/\">Black Mountain College<\/a>\u00a0in North Carolina, and later at Yale University. This European presence made clear the formal innovations of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/picasso-guitar\/\">Cubism<\/a>\u00a0as well as the psychological undertones and automatic painting techniques of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/surrealism-intro\/\">Surrealism<\/a>.\r\n\r\nWhereas Surrealism had found inspiration in the theories of Sigmund Freud, the Abstract Expressionists looked more to the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung and his explanations of primitive archetypes that were a part of our collective human experience. They also gravitated toward\u00a0Existentialist philosophy, made popular by European intellectuals such as Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre.\r\n\r\nGiven the atrocities of World War II, Existentialism appealed to the Abstract Expressionists. Sartre\u2019s position that an individual\u2019s actions might give life meaning suggested the importance of the artist\u2019s creative process. Through the artist\u2019s physical struggle with his materials, a painting itself might ultimately come to serve as a lasting mark of one\u2019s existence. Each of the artists involved with Abstract Expressionism eventually developed an individual style that can be easily recognized as evidence of his artistic practice and contribution.\r\n<h3 id=\"what-does-it-look-like\">What does it look like?<\/h3>\r\nAlthough Abstract Expressionism informed\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Cubi_xii_6283224-scaled.jpeg\">the sculpture of David Smith<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Untitled_LACMA_M.84.163.jpg\">Aaron Siskind\u2019s photography<\/a>, the movement is most closely linked to painting. Most Abstract Expressionist paintings are large-scale, include non-objective imagery, lack a clear focal point, and show visible signs of the artist\u2019s working process, but these characteristics are not consistent in every example.\r\n\r\nIn the case of Willem de Kooning\u2019s\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/de-k-woman\/\">Woman I<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0the visible brush strokes and thickly applied pigment are typical of the \u201cAction Painting\u201d style of Abstract Expressionism also associated with Jackson Pollock,\u00a0Joan Mitchell,\u00a0and Franz Kline. Looking at\u00a0<em>Woman I<\/em>, we can easily imagine de Kooning at work, using strong slashing gestures, adding gobs of paint to create heavily built-up surfaces that could be physically worked and reworked with his brush and palette knife. De Kooning\u2019s central image is clearly recognizable, reflecting the tradition of the female nude throughout art history. Born in the Netherlands, de Kooning was trained in the European academic tradition, unlike his American colleagues. Although he produced many non-objective works throughout his career, his early background might be one factor in his frequent return to the figure.\r\n\r\nIn contrast to the dynamic appearance of de Kooning\u2019s art, Helen Frankenthaler, Mark Rothko, Hedda Sterne,\u00a0and Barnett Newman exemplify what is sometimes called the \u201cColor Imagist\u201d or \u201cColor Field\u201d style of Abstract Expressionism. These artists produced large-scale, non-objective imagery as well, but their work lacks the energetic intensity and gestural quality of Action Painting. Rothko\u2019s mature paintings exemplify this tendency. His subtly rendered rectangles appear to float against their background. For artists like Rothko, these images were meant to encourage meditation and personal reflection.\r\n\r\nAbstract Expressionist Adolph Gottlieb, writing with Rothko and Newman in 1943, explained,\r\n\r\n\u201cWe favor the simple expression of the complex thought.\u201d [footnote]Letter from Mark Rothko and Adolph Gottlieb to Edward Alden Jewell Art Editor,<em>\u00a0New York Times<\/em>, June 7, 1943.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.moma.org\/collection\/works\/79250\">Barnett Newman\u2019s\u00a0<em>Vir, Heroicus, Sublimis<\/em><\/a> illustrates this lofty goal. In this painting, Newman relied on \u201czips,\u201d vertical lines that punctuate the painted field of the background to serve a dual function. While they visually highlight the expanse of contrasting color around them, they metaphorically reflect our own presence as individuals within our potentially overwhelming surroundings. Newman\u2019s painting evokes the 18th-century notion of the Sublime, a philosophical concept related to the spiritual understanding of humanity\u2019s place among the greater forces of the universe.\r\n<h3 id=\"abstract-expressionisms-legacy\">Abstract Expressionism\u2019s legacy<\/h3>\r\nThroughout the 1950s, Abstract Expressionism became the dominant influence on artists both in the United States and abroad. The U.S. government embraced its distinctive style as a reflection of American democracy, individualism, and cultural achievement and actively promoted international exhibitions of Abstract Expressionism as a form of political propaganda during the years of the\u00a0Cold War. However, many artists found it difficult to replicate the emotional authenticity implicit in the stylistic innovations of de Kooning and Pollock. Their work appeared studied and lacked the same vitality of the first-generation pioneers. Others saw the metaphysical undertones of Abstract Expressionism at odds with a society increasingly concerned with a consumer mentality, fueled by economic success and proliferation of the mass media. Such reactions would inevitably lead to the emergence of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/pop-art\/\">Pop<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/an-introduction-to-minimalism\/\">Minimalism<\/a>, and the rise of a range of new artistic developments in the mid-20th century.\r\n<h2 id=\"jackson-pollock-autumn-rhythm\">Jackson Pollock,\u00a0<em>Autumn Rhythm<\/em><\/h2>\r\nBest known for his drip paintings, Jackson Pollock explored the relationship between artist and material, creating influential works that redefined painting. The video below looks closely at Jackson Pollock\u2019s great drip painting,\u00a0<em>Autumn Rhythm.<\/em>\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=rQ9LbAsRs0I\r\n<div class=\"textbox textbox--key-takeaways\"><header class=\"textbox__header\">\r\n<h2 class=\"textbox__title\">Practicing Visual Analysis<\/h2>\r\n<\/header>\r\n<div class=\"textbox__content\">\r\n\r\nJackson Pollock\u2019s <em>Autum Rhythm<\/em> is large <strong>scale<\/strong> at seventeen feet wide. Noticeably absent from this Abstract-Expressionist work is discernable <strong>subject matter<\/strong>, which makes this piece abstract. Also missing are the following visual analysis concepts: <strong>linear perspective<\/strong>, <strong>atmospheric perspective<\/strong>, <strong>chiaroscuro<\/strong>, <strong>contour lines<\/strong>, <strong>forms<\/strong>, and <strong>veracity<\/strong>. What\u2019s left? A lot! Pollock\u2019s <strong>composition<\/strong> balances conscious artistic decisions with an interest in the unconscious mind and the concept of spontaneity (think back to Dada and Surrealism). Pollock allowed for the paint to operate according to its own qualities \u2013 drips, splatters, running, seeping \u2013 these come together to suggest the random and the spontaneous. Yet, the piece shows evidence of conscious decisions. Looking at the overall <strong>composition<\/strong>, we can see that Pollock chose to leave a border around the edges of the piece. The tan <strong>background<\/strong> of underlying <strong>color<\/strong> helps to unify the <strong>composition<\/strong>. It also concentrates the <strong>line<\/strong> work of paint toward the center of the canvas. He then chose to layer a minimal <strong>color palette<\/strong> of paint: black, white, splotches of blue, and tones of brown. The <strong>colors<\/strong> layer and <strong>overlap<\/strong> with one another creating a shallow <strong>pictorial space<\/strong>. Pollock applied the paint with various techniques, which allowed for a variety of <strong>textures<\/strong> across the canvas \u2013 areas where the paint is thin and seeped into the canvas, areas where the paint gathered in thick globs, etc. The black and white are also consciously gathered in certain areas of the canvas making concentrated <strong>focal points<\/strong> in a rhythmic <strong>pattern<\/strong>. In particular, the <strong>black lines<\/strong> allow the viewer\u2019s eye to be guided in a rhythmic movement across the canvas.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<h2 id=\"willem-de-kooning-woman-i\">Willem de Kooning,\u00a0<em>Woman, I<\/em><\/h2>\r\nA Dutch-born American artist, Willem De Kooning was an Abstract Expressionist whose style of constant revision moved between figuration and abstraction.\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=y0xbZTe1JSM\r\n<h2 id=\"mark-rothko-no.-210no.-211-orange\">Mark Rothko,\u00a0No. 210\/No. 211 (Orange)<\/h2>\r\nMark Rothko was a key figure in Abstract Expressionism, developing a form of Color Field painting that expressed the emotional impact of color.\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=qHSS-Ztxc0c\r\n<h2 id=\"helen-frankenthaler-mountains-and-sea\">Helen Frankenthaler,\u00a0<em>Mountains and Sea<\/em><\/h2>\r\nHelen Frankenthaler\u2019s mature Abstract Expressionist work featured thinned oil paint poured onto raw canvas.\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Sm8nOyqUz_g\r\n<h2 id=\"pop-art-an-introduction\">Pop art, an introduction<\/h2>\r\n<h3 id=\"popular-culture-popular-art\">Popular culture, \u201cpopular\u201d art<\/h3>\r\nAt first glance, Pop art might seem to glorify popular culture by elevating soup cans, comic strips and hamburgers to the status of fine art on the walls of museums. But, then again, a second look may suggest a critique of the mass marketing practices and consumer culture that emerged in the United States after World War II. Andy Warhol\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/warhol-gold-marilyn-monroe\/\"><em>Gold Marilyn Monroe<\/em><\/a>\u00a0clearly reflects this inherent irony of Pop. The central image on a gold background evokes a religious tradition of painted icons, transforming the Hollywood starlet into a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/virgin-theotokos-and-child-between-saints-theodore-and-george\/\">Byzantine Madonna<\/a>\u00a0that reflects our obsession with celebrity. Notably, Warhol\u2019s spiritual reference was especially poignant given Monroe\u2019s suicide a few months earlier. Like religious fanatics, the actress\u2019s fans worshipped their idol; yet, Warhol\u2019s sloppy\u00a0silkscreening\u00a0calls attention to the artifice of Marilyn\u2019s glamorous fa\u00e7ade and places her alongside other mass-marketed commodities like a can of soup or a box of Brillo pads.\r\n<h3 id=\"genesis-of-pop\">Genesis of Pop<\/h3>\r\nIn this light, it\u2019s not surprising that the term \u201cPop art\u201d first emerged in Great Britain, which suffered great economic hardship after the war. In the late 1940s, artists of the \u201cIndependent Group,\u201d first began to appropriate idealized images of the American lifestyle they found in popular magazines as part of their critique of British society.\u00a0\u00a0Critic Lawrence Alloway and artist Richard Hamilton are usually credited with coining the term, possibly in the context of Hamilton\u2019s famous collage\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/richard-hamilton-just-what-is-it\/\">Just what is it that makes today\u2019s home so different, so appealing?<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0Made to announce the Independent Group\u2019s 1956 exhibition \u201cThis Is Tomorrow,\u201d in London, the image prominently features a muscular semi-nude man, holding a phallically positioned Tootsie Pop.\r\n\r\nPop art\u2019s origins, however, can be traced back even further.\u00a0\u00a0In 1917, Marcel Duchamp asserted that any object\u2014including his notorious example of a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/marcel-duchamp-fountain\/\">urinal<\/a>\u2014could be art, as long as the artist intended it as such. Artists of the 1950s built on this notion to challenge boundaries distinguishing art from real life, in disciplines of music and dance, as well as visual art. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.moma.org\/collection\/works\/78712\">Robert Rauschenberg\u2019s<\/a> desire to \u201cwork in the gap between art and life,\u201d for example, led him to incorporate such objects as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/robert-rauschenberg-bed\/\">bed pillows<\/a>, tires, and even a stuffed goat in his \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/robert-rauschenberg-canyon\/\">combine paintings<\/a>\u201d that merged features of painting and sculpture.\u00a0Likewise, Claes Oldenberg\u00a0created\u00a0<em>The Store<\/em>, an installation in a vacant storefront where he sold crudely fashioned sculptures of brand-name consumer goods. These \u201cProto-pop\u201d artists were, in part, reacting against the rigid critical structure and lofty philosophies surrounding\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/abstract-expressionism-an-introduction\/\">Abstract Expressionism<\/a>, the dominant art movement of the time; but their work also reflected the numerous social changes taking place around them.\r\n<h3 id=\"post-war-consumer-culture-grabs-hold-and-never-lets-go\">Post-war consumer culture grabs hold (and never lets go)<\/h3>\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"447\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/b0df1115d24d72dcf9f396702f978f35.jpeg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/b0df1115d24d72dcf9f396702f978f35.jpeg\" alt=\"Vintage advertisement featuring a gas range stove, highlighting its modern features that make cooking easier, quicker, and cleaner. The ad includes images of the stove with labeled benefits such as automatic features, easy cleaning, and time-saving cooking, alongside a smiling woman and a kitchen setting with yellow and black accents.\" width=\"447\" height=\"640\" \/><\/a> c. 1950s advertisement for the American Gas Association (<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/pop-art\/?__cf_chl_f_tk=QGbs1x2aZnMHLCiSz8SbCQA59z0bR3SehcHfE7OMVhU-1783351158-1.0.1.1-GG3iaGXRID2gY3m51PgMlUNMt_aoJLXprJFFzOLRMeI\">Smarthistory<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nThe years following World War II saw enormous growth in the American economy, which, combined with innovations in technology and the media, spawned a consumer culture with more leisure time and expendable income than ever before. The manufacturing industry that had expanded during the war now began to mass-produce everything from hairspray and washing machines to shiny new convertibles, which advertisers claimed all would bring ultimate joy to their owners. Significantly, the development of television, as well as changes in print advertising, placed new emphasis on graphic images and recognizable brand logos\u2014something that we now take for granted in our visually saturated world.\r\n\r\nIt was in this artistic and cultural context that Pop artists developed their distinctive style of the early 1960s. Characterized by clearly rendered images of popular subject matter, it seemed to assault the standards of modern painting, which had embraced abstraction as a reflection of universal truths and individual expression.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1848\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Lichtenstein-copy-w-Steven-Zucker.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Lichtenstein-copy-w-Steven-Zucker.jpg\" alt=\"Pop art painting featuring a woman in a navy blue swimsuit holding a red and white ball against a yellow background on the left, and a close-up of her face with red lips and blue hair on the right. The artwork uses bold black outlines, red dot shading, and contrasting colors to emphasize facial features and vintage style.\" width=\"1848\" height=\"1457\" \/><\/a> Left: Roy Lichtenstein, <em>Girl with a Ball,<\/em> 1961, oil on canvas, 153 x 91.9 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.moma.org\/collection\/works\/79665\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Museum of Modern Art, New York<\/a>); right: Detail of face showing Lichtenstein\u2019s painted Ben-Day dots, Roy Lichtenstein, <em>Girl with a Ball<\/em>, 1961, oil on canvas, 153 x 91.9 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.moma.org\/collection\/works\/79665\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Museum of Modern Art, New York,\u00a0<\/a> photo: <a href=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/5UK3RT\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Steven Zucker<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/2.0\/deed.en\">CC BY-NC-SA 2.0<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n<h3 id=\"irony-and-iron-ons\">Irony and iron-ons<\/h3>\r\nIn contrast to the dripping paint and slashing brushstrokes of Abstract Expressionism\u2014and even of Proto-Pop art\u2014Pop artists applied their paint to imitate the look of industrial printing techniques. This ironic approach is exemplified by Lichtenstein\u2019s methodically painted Ben-Day dots, a mechanical process used to print pulp comics.\r\n\r\nAs the decade progressed, artists shifted away from painting towards the use of industrial techniques. Warhol began making silkscreens, before removing himself further from the process by having others do the actual printing in his studio, aptly named \u201cThe Factory.\u201d \u00a0Similarly, Oldenburg abandoned his early installations and performances, to produce the large-scale sculptures of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/claes-oldenburg-floor-cake\/\">cake slices<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/oldenburg-lipstick-ascending-on-caterpillar-tracks\/\">lipsticks<\/a>, and clothespins that he is best known for today.\r\n<h2 id=\"roy-lichtenstein-look-mickey\">Roy Lichtenstein,\u00a0<em>Look Mickey<\/em><\/h2>\r\nA major figure in the American Pop Art movement, Roy Lichtenstein is known for his appropriated comic-book style featuring hand-painted Ben-Day dots. Lichtenstein asks: can a painting of Mickey and Donald Duck be fine art?\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=50whnpUvFDY\r\n<h2 id=\"why-is-this-art-andy-warhol-campbells-soup-cans\">Why is this art? Andy Warhol,\u00a0<em>Campbell\u2019s Soup Cans<\/em><\/h2>\r\nThrough Pop Art, Andy Warhol examined consumer culture, mass media, and what it meant to be famous, using media that removed the artist\u2019s hand.\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=J2CtQD3OLRI\r\n<h2 id=\"andy-warhol-marilyn-diptych\">Andy Warhol, <a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/warhol-marilyn-diptych\/\"><em>Marilyn Diptych<\/em><\/a><\/h2>\r\nAndy Warhol\u2019s\u00a0<em>Marilyn Diptych<\/em>\u00a0is made of two silver canvases on which the artist silkscreened a photograph of Marilyn Monroe fifty times. At first glance, the work\u2014which explicitly references a form of Christian painting (see below) in its title\u2014invites us to worship the legendary icon, whose image Warhol plucked from popular culture and immortalized as art.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"2560\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/158bdd65-2dd1-7def-98a7-d5671decdf62-scaled.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/158bdd65-2dd1-7def-98a7-d5671decdf62-scaled-1.jpg\" alt=\"Diptych painting depicting religious Christian iconography with Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus on left panel, surrounded by angels. Right panel shows crucifixion of Jesus with two mourners and two angels above, framed by gold background and ornate borders.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1672\" \/><\/a> <em>Diptych with the Virgin and Child Enthroned and the Crucifixion<\/em>, 1275\u201380, tempera on panel, 38 x 59 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.artic.edu\/artworks\/16241\/diptych-of-the-virgin-and-child-enthroned-and-the-crucifixion\">Art Institute of Chicago<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/zero\/1.0\/deed.en\">CC0<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nBut as in all of Warhol\u2019s early paintings, this image is also a carefully crafted critique of both modern art and contemporary life.\r\n<h3 id=\"not-only-pop-culture\">Not only pop culture<\/h3>\r\nWith sustained looking, Warhol\u2019s works reveal that he was influenced not only by pop culture, but also by art history\u2014and especially by the art that was then popular in New York. For example, in this painting, we can identify the hallmarks of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/abstract-expressionism-an-introduction\/\">Abstract Expressionist<\/a>\u00a0painters like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1226\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/VisitorMarilyn.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/VisitorMarilyn.jpg\" alt=\"Photograph of a gallery setting featuring two adjacent pop art portraits of Marilyn Monroe, one in vibrant colors with yellow, pink, and blue tones, and the other in grayscale. A person stands observing the artwork, highlighting contrast between colorful repetition and monochrome fading effects, emphasizing themes of celebrity and media reproduction.\" width=\"1226\" height=\"811\" \/><\/a> Visitor, Tate Modern, London (photo: <a href=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/7DdZWu\">Barbara Piancastelli<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/2.0\/deed.en\">CC BY-NC-SA 2.0<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nAs in the work of these\u00a0older artists, the\u00a0monumental scale of\u00a0<em>Marilyn Diptych<\/em>\u00a0(more than six feet by nine feet) demands our attention and announces the importance of the subject matter. Furthermore, the seemingly careless handling of the paint and its \u201callover composition\u201d\u2014the even distribution of form and color across the entire canvas, such that the viewer\u2019s eyes wander without focusing on one spot\u2014are each hallmarks of Abstract Expressionism, as exemplified by Jackson Pollock\u2019s drip paintings. Yet Warhol references these painters only to undermine the supposed expressiveness of their gestures: like\u00a0Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, whose work he\u00a0admired, he uses photographic imagery, the silkscreen process and repetition to make art that is not about his interior life, but rather about the culture in which he lived.\r\n<h3 id=\"emotional-flatness\">Emotional flatness<\/h3>\r\nWarhol takes as the subject of his painting an impersonal image. Though he was an award-winning illustrator, instead of making his own drawing of Monroe, he appropriates an image that already exists. Furthermore, the image is not some other artist\u2019s drawing, but a photograph made for mass reproduction. Even if we don\u2019t recognize the source (a publicity photo for Monroe\u2019s 1953 film\u00a0<em>Niagara<\/em>), we know the image is a photo, not only because of its verisimilitude, but also because of the heightened contrast between the lit and shadowed areas of her face, which we associate with a photographer\u2019s flash.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3480\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"224\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3480 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Monroe_in_Niagara_1953_publicity_photo-224x300.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white photograph of a woman with styled blonde hair, wearing a dark sleeveless dress with a plunging neckline and light-colored collar. The portrait captures a confident expression with subtle makeup, including dark lipstick and earrings.\" width=\"224\" height=\"300\" \/> Publicity still for the film Niagara, 1953 (Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Monroe_in_Niagara_(1953_publicity_photo).jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a> in the United States)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nTrue to form, the actress looks at us seductively from under heavy-lidded eyes and with parted lips; but her expression is also a bit inscrutable, and the repetition remakes her face into an eerie, inanimate mask. Warhol\u2019s use of the silkscreen technique further \u201cflattens\u201d the star\u2019s face. By screening broad planes of unmodulated color, the artist removes\u00a0the gradual shading that creates a sense of three-dimensional volume, and suspends the actress in an abstract void. Through these choices, Warhol transforms the literal flatness of the paper-thin\u00a0publicity photo into an emotional \u201cflatness,\u201d and the actress into a kind of automaton. In this way, the painting suggests that \u201cMarilyn Monroe,\u201d\u00a0a manufactured star with a made-up name, is merely a one-dimensional (sex) symbol\u2014perhaps not the most appropriate object of our almost religious devotion.\r\n<h3 id=\"repetitions\">Repetitions<\/h3>\r\nWhile Warhol\u2019s silkscreened repetitions flatten Monroe\u2019s identity, they\u00a0also complicate\u00a0his own identity as the artist of this work. The silkscreen process allowed Warhol (or his assistants) to reproduce the same image over and over again, using multiple colors.\u00a0Once the screens are manufactured and the colors are chosen, the artist simply spreads inks evenly over the screens using a wide squeegee.\u00a0Though there are differences from one face to the next, these appear to be the accidental byproducts of a quasi-mechanical process, rather than the product of the artist\u2019s judgment. Warhol\u2019s rote painting technique\u00a0is echoed by the rigid composition of the work,\u00a0a five-by-five grid of faces, repeated\u00a0across the two halves of its surface.\r\n\r\nHere, as in many Neo-Dada,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/an-introduction-to-minimalism\/\">minimalist<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/conceptual-art-introduction\/\">conceptual<\/a>\u00a0works, the grid is like a program that the artist uses to \u201cautomate\u201d the process of composing the work, instead of relying on subjective thoughts or feelings to make decisions. In other words, Warhol\u2019s \u201ccool,\u201d detached composition is the opposite of the intimate, soulful encounter with the canvas associated with Abstract Expressionism.\u00a0But whereas most works that use\u00a0grids are abstract, here, the the grid repeats a photo of a movie star, causing the painting to resemble a photographer\u2019s contact sheet, or a series of film strips placed side-by-side. These references to mechanical forms of reproduction further prove that for Warhol, painting is no longer an\u00a0elevated medium distinct from popular culture.\r\n<h3 id=\"ghostly-symmetry\">Ghostly symmetry<\/h3>\r\nAside from radically changing our notion of painting, Warhol\u2019s choices create a symmetry between the artist and his subject, who each seem to be less than fully human: the artist becomes a machine, just as the actress becomes a mask or a shell.\u00a0Another word we could use to describe the presence of both the artist and the actress might be\u00a0<em>ghostly<\/em>, and in fact, Warhol started making his series of \u201cMarilyn\u201d paintings only after the star had died of an apparent suicide, and eventually collected them with other disturbing paintings under the title \u201cDeath in America.\u201d Her death haunts this painting: on the left, her purple, garishly made-up face resembles an embalmed corpse, while the lighter tones of some of the faces on the right make it seem like she is disappearing before our eyes.\r\n\r\nWarhol once noted that through repeated exposure to an image, we become de-sensitized to it.\u00a0In that case, by repeating Monroe\u2019s mask-like face, he not only drains away her life, but also ours as well, by\u00a0deadening\u00a0our emotional response to her death. Then again, by making her face so strange and unfamiliar, he might also be trying to re-sensitize us to her image, so that we remember she isn\u2019t just a symbol, but a person whom we might pity. From the perspective of psychoanalytic theory, he may even be forcing us to relive, and therefore work through, the traumatic shock of her death. The painting is\u00a0more than a mere celebration of Monroe\u2019s iconic status.\u00a0It is an invitation to consider the consequences of the increasing role of mass media images in our everyday lives.\r\n<h2 id=\"minimalism-an-introduction\">Minimalism, an introduction<\/h2>\r\n<h3 id=\"a-reductive-abstract-art\">A reductive abstract art<\/h3>\r\nAlthough many works of art can be described as \u201cminimal,\u201d the name Minimalism refers specifically to a kind of reductive abstract art that emerged during the early 1960s.\u00a0At the time, some critics preferred names like \u201cABC,\u201d \u201cBoring,\u201d or \u201cLiteral\u201d Art, and even \u201cNo-Art Nihilism,\u201d which they believed best summed up the literal presentation and lack of expressive content characterizing this new aesthetic. [footnote]These critiques followed the Jewish Museum\u2019s 1966 exhibition titled\u00a0<em>Primary Structures<\/em>, which was the first major exhibition to showcase a survey of minimalist artworks in the United States. See Michael Fried, \u201cArt and Objecthood,\u201d\u00a0<em>Artforum<\/em>, volume 5, number 10 (1967), pp. 12\u201323.[\/footnote] While scholars have recently argued for a broader definition of Minimalism that would include artists in a number of disciplines, the term remains closely linked to sculpture of the period.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.guggenheim.org\/artwork\/1741\">Donald Judd\u2019s\u00a0<em>Untitled\u00a0<\/em>(1969)<\/a> is characteristic in its use of spare geometric forms, repeated to create a unified whole that calls attention to its physical size in relationship to the viewer. Like most Minimalists, Judd used industrial materials and processes to manufacture his work, but his preference for color and shiny surfaces distinguished him among the artists who pioneered the style.\r\n<h3 id=\"lack-of-apparent-meaning\">Lack of apparent meaning<\/h3>\r\nWhat most people find disturbing about Minimalism is its lack of any apparent meaning. Like\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/pop-art\/\">Pop Art<\/a>, which emerged simultaneously, Minimalism presented ordinary subject matter in a literal way that lacked expressive features or metaphorical content; likewise, the use of commercial processes smacked of mass production and seemed to reject traditional expectations of skill and originality in art. In these ways, both movements were, in part, a response to the dominance of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/abstract-expressionism-an-introduction\/\">Abstract Expressionism<\/a>, which had held that painting conveys profound subjective meaning. However, whereas Pop artists depicted recognizable images from\u00a0kitsch\u00a0sources, the Minimalists exhibited their plywood boxes, fluorescent lights, and concrete blocks directly on gallery floors, which seemed even more difficult to distinguish as \u201cArt.\u201d (One well-known story tells of an art dealer who visited\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/carl-andre-lever\/\">Carl Andre<\/a>\u2019s studio during the winter and unknowingly burned a sculpture for firewood while the artist was away.) [footnote]Hollis Frampton, \u201cLetter to Enno Develing,\u201d\u00a0<em>On the Camera Arts and Consecutive Matters: The Writings of Hollis Frampton<\/em>, edited by Bruce Jenkins (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2015), pp. 281\u201382.[\/footnote] Moreover, when asked to explain his black-striped paintings of 1959,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/stella-marriage\/\">Frank Stella<\/a>\u00a0responded, \u201cWhat you see is what you see.\u201d [footnote]Frank Stella, \u201cNew Nihilism or New Art?\u201d by Bruce Glaser, WBAI-FM, New York, February, 1964.[\/footnote] Stella\u2019s comment implied that not only was there no meaning, but that none was necessary to demonstrate the object\u2019s artistic value.\r\n<h3 id=\"writings\">Writings<\/h3>\r\nGiven these facts, it may seem odd to learn that hundreds of essays and books have been written about Minimalism, many by the artists themselves. It is significant that, although Minimalist art shares similar features, the artists associated with the movement developed their aesthetic ideas from a variety of philosophical and artistic influences. Through their writings, Minimalist artists put forth distinctive positions about the work they produced. In addition to his role as a sculptor, Judd was a prominent art critic, and his reviews provide eloquent explanations of his intent\u2014shared by Stella and Dan Flavin\u2014to eliminate the illusionism and \u201csubjective\u201d decision-making of traditional painting. [footnote]For example, see Donald Judd, \u201cSpecific Objects,\u201d\u00a0<em>Arts Yearbook<\/em>, volume 8 (1965), pp. 74\u201382.[\/footnote]\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/robert-morris-untitled-l-beams\/\">Robert Morris<\/a>, whose sculpture was influenced by avant-garde dance and performance, published a series of texts, arguing for sculpture to be understood in physical and psychological terms; and, Sol LeWitt introduced the term\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/conceptual-art-introduction\/\">Conceptual Art<\/a>\u00a0to explain the use of seriality and systemic structure in his cubic grid-like forms. [footnote]Robert Morris, \u201cNotes on Sculpture,\u201d\u00a0<em>Artforum<\/em>, volume 4, number 6 (1966), pp. 42\u201344 and Sol Lewitt, \u201cParagraphs on Conceptual Art,\u201d\u00a0<em>Artforum<\/em>, volume 5, number 10 (1967), pp. 79\u201383.[\/footnote]\r\n<h3 id=\"legacy-1\">Legacy<\/h3>\r\nIn this way, the artists, along with critics and art historians over the past 50 years, have developed a critical discourse that surrounds the art objects, but which is essential to understanding Minimalism itself. Likewise, such artists as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/richard-serra-tilted-arc\/\">Richard Serra<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/becher-water-towers\/\">Bernd and Hilla Becher<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/maya-lin-vietnam-veterans-memorial\/\">Maya Lin<\/a>, and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/who-is-rachel-whiteread\/\">Rachel Whiteread<\/a>, who use Minimalist practice of the early 1960s as a point of departure for their own creative exploration, continue to contribute to the movement\u2019s legacy and our understanding of its significance today.\r\n<h2 id=\"conclusion-14\">Conclusion<\/h2>\r\nAbstract-Expressionism, Pop Art, and Minimalism represent three stylistic movements that serve as the foundation for later 20<sup>th<\/sup> century and contemporary art. Abstract-Expressionism focused on large-scale canvases that explored the moral crisis of art after the Second World War. In a rejection of the grandiose statements of Abstract-Expressionism, Pop Art emerged as a direct descendant of Dada. Working with the concepts of commercial culture and mass media, Pop artists rejected the presence of an artist\u2019s gesture and the often-obscure abstraction of the previous generation. Instead, Pop artists favored clearer subject matter and material rooted in the popular culture of the 20<sup>th<\/sup> century. Also developing from the origins of Dada, Minimalism represented a different response to Abstract-Expressionism. Minimalists often removed gesture to focus on the mass-produced quality of modern materials and sought to collapse the boundaries of how we define art. Each of these three styles inspired numerous movements of the later 20<sup>th<\/sup> century and continue to inspire artists living and working today.\r\n<h3 id=\"citation-and-licensing-14\">Citation and Licensing<\/h3>\r\nThe following sections were written by Chelsea Wright and licensed <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/4.0\/\">CC BY-NC-SA 4.0<\/a>:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Chapter Overview and Introduction<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Focus artwork and term list compiled by Chelsea Wright<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Practicing Visual Analysis<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Conclusion<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\nThe following articles from <em>Smarthistory<\/em> licensed <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/4.0\/\">CC BY-NC-SA 4.0<\/a> were remixed and adapted for the chapter:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Dr. Kelly Enright, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/1945-80-in-the-united-states-an-introduction\/\">1945\u201380 in the United States, an introduction<\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, June 25, 2024.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Dr. Virginia B. Spivey, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/abstract-expressionism-an-introduction\/\">Abstract Expressionism, an introduction<\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, August 9, 2015.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Smarthistory, \u201c<a href=\"\/smarthistory.org\/artist\/jackson-pollock\/\">Jackson Pollock<\/a>,\u201d in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory.<\/em><\/li>\r\n \t<li>Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/autumn-rhythm\/\">Jackson Pollock,\u00a0<em>Autumn Rhythm<\/em><\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, December 3, 2020.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Smarthistory, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/artist\/willem-de-kooning\/\">Willem de Kooning<\/a>,\u201d in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory.<\/em><\/li>\r\n \t<li>Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/de-k-woman\/\">Willem de Kooning,\u00a0<em>Woman, I<\/em><\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, October 8, 2016.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Smarthistory, \u201c<a href=\"\/smarthistory.org\/artist\/mark-rothko\/\">Mark Rothko<\/a>,\u201d in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory.<\/em><\/li>\r\n \t<li>Dr. Margaret C. Conrads and Dr. Steven Zucker, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/rothko-orange\/\">Mark Rothko,\u00a0<em>No. 210\/No. 211 (Orange)<\/em><\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Smarthistory, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/artist\/helen-frankenthaler\/\">Helen Frankenthaler<\/a>,\u201d in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory.<\/em><\/li>\r\n \t<li>Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/frankenthaler-sea\/\">Helen Frankenthaler,\u00a0<em>Mountains and Sea<\/em><\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, June 19, 2018.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Dr. Virginia B. Spivey, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/pop-art\/\">Pop art, an introduction<\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, July 15, 2024.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Smarthistory, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/artist\/roy-lichtenstein\/\">Roy Lichtenstein<\/a>,\u201d in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory.<\/em><\/li>\r\n \t<li>Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/roy-lichtenstein-look-mickey\/\">Roy Lichtenstein,\u00a0<em>Look Mickey<\/em><\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, August 25, 2025.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Smarthistory, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/artist\/andy-warhol\/\">Andy Warhol<\/a>,\u201d in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory.<\/em><\/li>\r\n \t<li>Sal Khan and Dr. Steven Zucker, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/why-is-this-art-andy-warhol-campbells-soup-cans\/\">Why is this art? Andy Warhol,\u00a0<em>Campbell\u2019s Soup Cans<\/em><\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, December 8, 2015.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Tina Rivers Ryan, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/warhol-marilyn-diptych\/\">Andy Warhol,\u00a0<em>Marilyn Diptych<\/em><\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, August 9, 2015.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Dr. Virginia B. Spivey, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/an-introduction-to-minimalism\/\">Minimalism, an introduction<\/a>,\" in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, August 9, 2015.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>","rendered":"<h2 id=\"chapter-overview-and-introduction-14\">Chapter Overview and Introduction<\/h2>\n<p>After World War II, several major art styles developed in the United States with New York City flourishing as a new epicenter for art. The first was Abstract-Expressionism. Artists developed two forms of Abstract Expressionism with large-scale canvas designed to envelop the viewer: action painting and color field painting. In response to Abstract-Expressionism, other new styles emerged in the 1960s. This included Pop Art, with its fascination with the rising consumer culture of 1960s America. The other was Minimalism.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"focus-artworks-14\">Focus Artworks<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Jackson Pollock,\u00a0<em>Autumn Rhythm (Number 30)<\/em>, 1950, enamel on canvas<\/li>\n<li>Willem de Kooning,\u00a0<em>Woman, I<\/em>, 1950\u201352, oil on canvas<\/li>\n<li>Mark Rothko<em>,\u00a0No. 210\/No. 211 (Orange),\u00a0<\/em>1960, oil on canvas<\/li>\n<li>Helen Frankenthaler,\u00a0<em>Mountains and Sea<\/em>, 1952, oil and charcoal on unsized, unprimed canvas<\/li>\n<li>Roy Lichtenstein,\u00a0<em>Look Mickey<\/em>, 1961, oil on canvas<\/li>\n<li>Andy Warhol,\u00a0<em>Marilyn Diptych<\/em>, 1962, acrylic on canvas<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 id=\"term-list-14\">Term List<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Abstract-Expressionism<\/li>\n<li>Action painting<\/li>\n<li>Color field painting<\/li>\n<li>Stain<\/li>\n<li>Biomorphic<\/li>\n<li>Pop art<\/li>\n<li>Silkscreen<\/li>\n<li>Ben-Day dots<\/li>\n<li>Minimalism<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 id=\"in-the-united-states-an-introduction-1\">1945\u201380 in the United States, an introduction<\/h2>\n<p>Seven miles of traffic backed up the Santa Ana Freeway on a hot July day in 1955. Families in their vehicles baked in the sun while waiting to arrive at the opening of filmmaker Walt Disney\u2019s new California amusement park. The much-anticipated opening of Disneyland brought a crowd connected by popular culture and eager for respectable middle-class entertainment.<\/p>\n<p>The freeway that connected them to the park had only recently been built. Freeways and interstate highways throughout the nation connected people to burgeoning suburbs and the promise of the American dream, a peaceful family life, and home ownership.<\/p>\n<p>Inside those homes, families watched television programs that packaged the American middle class lifestyle in cheery and gender-stratified roles. This seemingly simple conformist society quickly gave way to conflicts in the 1960s and 70s that unmasked discontents that lurked behind post-war prosperity.<\/p>\n<p>In the summer of 1955, the opening of Disneyland signaled the fictions of the screen come to life. The entire park landscape questioned the division between fantasy and reality, and blurred the lines between history and fairytale.<\/p>\n<p>Disney\u2019s Main Street USA represented nostalgia for an imagined na\u00efve America before the war, while Tomorrowland optimistically cast technology as the road to national contentment. Lost in this land, Americans suspended their disbelief, entertained their children and themselves, and, as the century progressed, escaped their increasingly complex social and political present.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"a-new-war\">A new war<\/h3>\n<p>Emerging from the conflict of World War II as a dominant power, the U.S. embroiled itself in a new conflict \u2014\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/seeing-america-2\/rothko-no-210-211-orange-sa\/\">the Cold War<\/a>. With the Marshall Plan, the U.S. helped aid recovery in Western Europe and Asia, but the underlying goal, to stop Communist expansion, led to an arms race with the Soviet Union and culminated, in 1962, in an event that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war \u2014 the Cuban Missile Crisis.<\/p>\n<p>In attempts to stop Russia and China\u2019s communist models from being replicated, the U.S. engaged in wars in both Korea and Vietnam. Fear of communists at home reemerged as well. Unions were investigated for pro-communist leaders beginning in 1947 and, in 1950, Senator Joe McCarthy investigated suspected spies inside the U.S. government using methods widely seen as an abuse of power.<\/p>\n<p>Throughout the 1960s, the space race promoted technology as political prowess. The Soviets launched the first man-made satellite of earth, Sputnik, while the U.S. landed the first man on the moon in 1969. But, with the aftermath of the atomic bomb that had ended the world war, Americans in the mid-twentieth century also\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/seeing-america-2\/jess-2\/\">questioned<\/a>\u00a0technology\u2019s impact upon society and the environment.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"cultural-changes\">Cultural changes<\/h3>\n<p>Entering the 1950s, elements of the\u00a0New Deal\u00a0remained strong with many in support of unions and business regulation. As a result, the post-war middle class grew \u2014 as did the population in an unsurpassed \u201cbaby boom\u201d that lasted until the 1960s.<\/p>\n<p>President Dwight D. Eisenhower funded an expansive interstate highway system just as affordable cookie-cutter houses popped up in growing suburban neighborhoods. American dreams of home-owning and the accoutrements of middle class life became more accessible to white Americans who increasing fled from cities. In addition, with the Fair Labor Standards Act and the establishment of a regulated 40-hour work week in most industries and paid leisure time, came the motels, and tourist attractions that began to dot the new highway system.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/seeing-america-2\/warhol-coca-cola2\/\">Consumer culture<\/a>\u00a0depicting this new American lifestyle rapidly spread through television programs and advertisements.<\/p>\n<p>With young people newly able to enjoy increasing leisure time, a teenage culture thrived. It rebelled against postwar conformity while simultaneously becoming mainstream and commercially potent. Rock and roll music grew in popularity during this era, with the controversial moves of Elvis Presley ringing in the phenomenon.<\/p>\n<p>Popular music began to express the feelings, as well as the politics, of the younger generation through performers like Bob Dylan and the Beatles. Hollywood portrayed appealing rebels and \u201cgreasers\u201d while the Beat Generation sought isolation from the reach of popular culture and consumerism.<\/p>\n<p>This generation grew to launch protests against unjust politics, racial and gender discrimination, and the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/seeing-america-2\/lipstick-ascending-sa\/\">Vietnam War<\/a>. The countercultural movements of the 1960s and 70s also sought to change attitudes about sexuality, homosexuality, reproductive rights, and divorce.<\/p>\n<p>Women who had worked in jobs on the home front while men were fighting World War II, had been pushed back into the domestic realm. In 1963, Betty Friedan expressed the discontent of housewives in the book\u00a0The Feminine Mystique\u00a0and helped found the National Organization for Women. She was among the promotors of the Equal Rights Amendment which ultimately failed to pass \u2014 leaving the legal protection of equal opportunities for women in the hands of other, narrower federal laws, and piecemeal state regulations.<\/p>\n<p>With the legalization of contraception and abortion, and the introduction of the Pill, women found they could more easily delay marriage and children to pursue careers. But as the work of the artist\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/ukeles-washing\/\">Mierle Ukeles<\/a>\u00a0makes clear, women continue to struggle in the modern workplace.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"the-great-society\">The Great Society<\/h3>\n<p>When\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/seeing-america-2\/winogrand-jfk\/\">John F. Kennedy<\/a>\u00a0was elected president in 1960, he was the youngest to ever serve in that office, and he was the first Catholic to do so. His promise was to build a Great Society that was both democratic and equal.<\/p>\n<p>Before his\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/seeing-america-2\/homage-to-jfk-rauschenbergs-retroactive-i\/\">assassination in 1963<\/a>, JFK began pushing federal programs aimed at alleviating poverty and dismantling segregation, as well as introducing Medicare, federal financial aid for education, funding for arts, and environmental protections. Though these plans were ultimately implemented under Lyndon B. Johnson, JFK\u2019s celebrity only grew after his death.<\/p>\n<p>Among the legislation that President Johnson pushed forward were the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, marking major victories for the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/benny-andrews-flag-day\/\">civil rights movement<\/a>. The 1950s saw several landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions that were important moves toward\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/seeing-america-2\/a-harlem-street-scene-by-jacob-lawrence-ambulance-call\/\">racial equality<\/a>, but none fully established desegregation. Brown v. Board of Education (1954), for example, ended \u201cseparate but equal\u201d but left implementation to the states where there were often long traditions of racial discrimination.<\/p>\n<p>Many civil rights leaders, such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., promoted peaceful direct action, such as boycotts and sit-ins, to demonstrate\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/seeing-america-2\/parks-ellison-2\/\">African American resistance to segregation<\/a>, while other civil rights leaders wished for a more radical course of action. Nonviolent tactics, sought to bring awareness through media coverage and political attention, to the plight of their cause, but even peaceful actions were met with violence and arrests by police.<\/p>\n<p>While African Americans had long fought for equal rights through such actions, the protests of the civil rights movement grew to include women,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/seeing-america-2\/seeing-america-smith-state-names\/\">Native Americans<\/a>, LGBT, and other marginalized Americans. The momentum of these movements also helped to galvanize protests to the Vietnam War as people questioned the purpose and the expansion of American involvement in Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n<p>When Richard Nixon took office, he expanded the war beyond Vietnam to the neighboring country of Cambodia, further escalating protests against the war. Demonstrations at Kent State and Jackson State resulted in live fire from the National Guard and police, fueling nationwide protests not just against the war but against the government\u2019s abandonment of the principles of law and order.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"a-new-reality\">A new reality<\/h3>\n<p>In 1973, cars backed up along roadways not in anticipation of the fantasies of Disneyland but in long lines at gas stations as the oil crisis limited availability of the commodity that fueled twentieth-century America.<\/p>\n<p>As the 1970s came to an end, the culture war between conservatives, liberals, and the\u00a0New Left\u00a0simmered. The liberal decades after the Second World War ended with a swing to conservatism signaled by the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.<\/p>\n<p>What had begun as a tranquil era of idealism ended with an awareness that inequality and other injustices had undermined the American dream. Throughout the 1970s, many had become uncertain or discontent with their role in society, unsure of future economic prosperity, and confused about the ethical course of the American political system.<\/p>\n<p>But progress had been made. In a blind competition of 1,400 entries, a young Asian American woman won the bid to design the national\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/seeing-america-2\/vvm-sa\/\">Vietnam War Memorial<\/a>. Maya Lin\u2019s design was something entirely new in war memorialization. It honored not generals or leaders or individual faces. Instead, it listed the name of every known individual who had lost their life in the controversial war.<\/p>\n<p>With its abstract design and apolitical approach, the memorial symbolized the need for the nation to move beyond the conflicts of the 1970s, even if the root of those conflicts remained largely unresolved.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"abstract-expressionism-an-introduction\">Abstract Expressionism, an introduction<\/h2>\n<p>The group of artists known as Abstract Expressionists emerged in the United States in the years following World War II. As the term suggests, their work was characterized by non-objective imagery that appeared emotionally charged with personal meaning. The artists, however, rejected these implications of the name.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"whats-in-a-name\">What\u2019s in a name?<\/h3>\n<p>They insisted their subjects were not \u201cabstract\u201d but rather primal images, deeply rooted in society\u2019s collective unconscious. Their paintings did not express mere emotion. They communicated universal truths about the human condition. For these reasons, another term\u2014the New York School\u2014offers a more accurate descriptor of the group, for although some eventually relocated, their distinctive aesthetic first found form in New York City.<\/p>\n<p>The rise of the New York School reflects the broader cultural context of the mid-20th century, especially the shift away from Europe as the center of intellectual and artistic innovation in the\u00a0West. Much of Abstract Expressionism\u2019s significance stems from its status as the first American visual art movement to gain international acclaim.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"art-for-a-world-in-shambles\">Art for a world in shambles<\/h3>\n<p>Barnett Newman, an artist associated with the movement, wrote:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe felt the moral crisis of a world in shambles, a world destroyed by a great depression and a fierce World War, and it was impossible at that time to paint the kind of paintings that we were doing\u2014flowers, reclining nudes, and people playing the cello.\u201d <a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Barnett Newman, \u201cResponse to the Reverend Thomas F. Mathews,\u201d\u00a0Revelation, Place and Symbol: Journal of the First Congress on Religion, Architecture, and the Visual Art\u00a0(New York, 1969), pp. 129\u201334.\" id=\"return-footnote-3367-1\" href=\"#footnote-3367-1\" aria-label=\"Footnote 1\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Although distinguished by individual styles, the Abstract Expressionists shared common artistic and intellectual interests. While not expressly political, most of the artists held strong convictions based on Marxist ideas of social and economic equality. Many had benefited directly from employment in the Works Progress Administration\u2019s Federal Art Project. There, they found influences in Regionalist styles of American artists such as Thomas Hart Benton, as well as the Social Realism of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/mexican-muralism-los-tres-grandes-david-alfaro-siqueiros-diego-rivera-and-jose-clemente-orozco\/\">Mexican muralists<\/a>\u00a0including Diego Rivera and Jos\u00e9 Clemente Orozco.<\/p>\n<p>The growth of Fascism in Europe had brought a wave of immigrant artists to the United States in the 1930s, which gave Americans greater access to ideas and practices of European Modernism. They sought training at the school founded by German painter Hans Hoffmann, and from Josef Albers, who left the Bauhaus in 1933 to teach at the experimental\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/black-mountain-college\/\">Black Mountain College<\/a>\u00a0in North Carolina, and later at Yale University. This European presence made clear the formal innovations of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/picasso-guitar\/\">Cubism<\/a>\u00a0as well as the psychological undertones and automatic painting techniques of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/surrealism-intro\/\">Surrealism<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Whereas Surrealism had found inspiration in the theories of Sigmund Freud, the Abstract Expressionists looked more to the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung and his explanations of primitive archetypes that were a part of our collective human experience. They also gravitated toward\u00a0Existentialist philosophy, made popular by European intellectuals such as Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre.<\/p>\n<p>Given the atrocities of World War II, Existentialism appealed to the Abstract Expressionists. Sartre\u2019s position that an individual\u2019s actions might give life meaning suggested the importance of the artist\u2019s creative process. Through the artist\u2019s physical struggle with his materials, a painting itself might ultimately come to serve as a lasting mark of one\u2019s existence. Each of the artists involved with Abstract Expressionism eventually developed an individual style that can be easily recognized as evidence of his artistic practice and contribution.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"what-does-it-look-like\">What does it look like?<\/h3>\n<p>Although Abstract Expressionism informed\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Cubi_xii_6283224-scaled.jpeg\">the sculpture of David Smith<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Untitled_LACMA_M.84.163.jpg\">Aaron Siskind\u2019s photography<\/a>, the movement is most closely linked to painting. Most Abstract Expressionist paintings are large-scale, include non-objective imagery, lack a clear focal point, and show visible signs of the artist\u2019s working process, but these characteristics are not consistent in every example.<\/p>\n<p>In the case of Willem de Kooning\u2019s\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/de-k-woman\/\">Woman I<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0the visible brush strokes and thickly applied pigment are typical of the \u201cAction Painting\u201d style of Abstract Expressionism also associated with Jackson Pollock,\u00a0Joan Mitchell,\u00a0and Franz Kline. Looking at\u00a0<em>Woman I<\/em>, we can easily imagine de Kooning at work, using strong slashing gestures, adding gobs of paint to create heavily built-up surfaces that could be physically worked and reworked with his brush and palette knife. De Kooning\u2019s central image is clearly recognizable, reflecting the tradition of the female nude throughout art history. Born in the Netherlands, de Kooning was trained in the European academic tradition, unlike his American colleagues. Although he produced many non-objective works throughout his career, his early background might be one factor in his frequent return to the figure.<\/p>\n<p>In contrast to the dynamic appearance of de Kooning\u2019s art, Helen Frankenthaler, Mark Rothko, Hedda Sterne,\u00a0and Barnett Newman exemplify what is sometimes called the \u201cColor Imagist\u201d or \u201cColor Field\u201d style of Abstract Expressionism. These artists produced large-scale, non-objective imagery as well, but their work lacks the energetic intensity and gestural quality of Action Painting. Rothko\u2019s mature paintings exemplify this tendency. His subtly rendered rectangles appear to float against their background. For artists like Rothko, these images were meant to encourage meditation and personal reflection.<\/p>\n<p>Abstract Expressionist Adolph Gottlieb, writing with Rothko and Newman in 1943, explained,<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe favor the simple expression of the complex thought.\u201d <a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Letter from Mark Rothko and Adolph Gottlieb to Edward Alden Jewell Art Editor,\u00a0New York Times, June 7, 1943.\" id=\"return-footnote-3367-2\" href=\"#footnote-3367-2\" aria-label=\"Footnote 2\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.moma.org\/collection\/works\/79250\">Barnett Newman\u2019s\u00a0<em>Vir, Heroicus, Sublimis<\/em><\/a> illustrates this lofty goal. In this painting, Newman relied on \u201czips,\u201d vertical lines that punctuate the painted field of the background to serve a dual function. While they visually highlight the expanse of contrasting color around them, they metaphorically reflect our own presence as individuals within our potentially overwhelming surroundings. Newman\u2019s painting evokes the 18th-century notion of the Sublime, a philosophical concept related to the spiritual understanding of humanity\u2019s place among the greater forces of the universe.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"abstract-expressionisms-legacy\">Abstract Expressionism\u2019s legacy<\/h3>\n<p>Throughout the 1950s, Abstract Expressionism became the dominant influence on artists both in the United States and abroad. The U.S. government embraced its distinctive style as a reflection of American democracy, individualism, and cultural achievement and actively promoted international exhibitions of Abstract Expressionism as a form of political propaganda during the years of the\u00a0Cold War. However, many artists found it difficult to replicate the emotional authenticity implicit in the stylistic innovations of de Kooning and Pollock. Their work appeared studied and lacked the same vitality of the first-generation pioneers. Others saw the metaphysical undertones of Abstract Expressionism at odds with a society increasingly concerned with a consumer mentality, fueled by economic success and proliferation of the mass media. Such reactions would inevitably lead to the emergence of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/pop-art\/\">Pop<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/an-introduction-to-minimalism\/\">Minimalism<\/a>, and the rise of a range of new artistic developments in the mid-20th century.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"jackson-pollock-autumn-rhythm\">Jackson Pollock,\u00a0<em>Autumn Rhythm<\/em><\/h2>\n<p>Best known for his drip paintings, Jackson Pollock explored the relationship between artist and material, creating influential works that redefined painting. The video below looks closely at Jackson Pollock\u2019s great drip painting,\u00a0<em>Autumn Rhythm.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"oembed-1\" title=\"Jackson Pollock, Autumn Rhythm (Number 30)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rQ9LbAsRs0I?feature=oembed&#38;rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div class=\"textbox textbox--key-takeaways\">\n<header class=\"textbox__header\">\n<h2 class=\"textbox__title\">Practicing Visual Analysis<\/h2>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"textbox__content\">\n<p>Jackson Pollock\u2019s <em>Autum Rhythm<\/em> is large <strong>scale<\/strong> at seventeen feet wide. Noticeably absent from this Abstract-Expressionist work is discernable <strong>subject matter<\/strong>, which makes this piece abstract. Also missing are the following visual analysis concepts: <strong>linear perspective<\/strong>, <strong>atmospheric perspective<\/strong>, <strong>chiaroscuro<\/strong>, <strong>contour lines<\/strong>, <strong>forms<\/strong>, and <strong>veracity<\/strong>. What\u2019s left? A lot! Pollock\u2019s <strong>composition<\/strong> balances conscious artistic decisions with an interest in the unconscious mind and the concept of spontaneity (think back to Dada and Surrealism). Pollock allowed for the paint to operate according to its own qualities \u2013 drips, splatters, running, seeping \u2013 these come together to suggest the random and the spontaneous. Yet, the piece shows evidence of conscious decisions. Looking at the overall <strong>composition<\/strong>, we can see that Pollock chose to leave a border around the edges of the piece. The tan <strong>background<\/strong> of underlying <strong>color<\/strong> helps to unify the <strong>composition<\/strong>. It also concentrates the <strong>line<\/strong> work of paint toward the center of the canvas. He then chose to layer a minimal <strong>color palette<\/strong> of paint: black, white, splotches of blue, and tones of brown. The <strong>colors<\/strong> layer and <strong>overlap<\/strong> with one another creating a shallow <strong>pictorial space<\/strong>. Pollock applied the paint with various techniques, which allowed for a variety of <strong>textures<\/strong> across the canvas \u2013 areas where the paint is thin and seeped into the canvas, areas where the paint gathered in thick globs, etc. The black and white are also consciously gathered in certain areas of the canvas making concentrated <strong>focal points<\/strong> in a rhythmic <strong>pattern<\/strong>. In particular, the <strong>black lines<\/strong> allow the viewer\u2019s eye to be guided in a rhythmic movement across the canvas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2 id=\"willem-de-kooning-woman-i\">Willem de Kooning,\u00a0<em>Woman, I<\/em><\/h2>\n<p>A Dutch-born American artist, Willem De Kooning was an Abstract Expressionist whose style of constant revision moved between figuration and abstraction.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"oembed-2\" title=\"Willem de Kooning, Woman, I\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/y0xbZTe1JSM?feature=oembed&#38;rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"mark-rothko-no.-210no.-211-orange\">Mark Rothko,\u00a0No. 210\/No. 211 (Orange)<\/h2>\n<p>Mark Rothko was a key figure in Abstract Expressionism, developing a form of Color Field painting that expressed the emotional impact of color.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"oembed-3\" title=\"Rothko, No. 210\/No. 211 (Orange)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qHSS-Ztxc0c?feature=oembed&#38;rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"helen-frankenthaler-mountains-and-sea\">Helen Frankenthaler,\u00a0<em>Mountains and Sea<\/em><\/h2>\n<p>Helen Frankenthaler\u2019s mature Abstract Expressionist work featured thinned oil paint poured onto raw canvas.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"oembed-4\" title=\"Frankenthaler, Mountains and Sea\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Sm8nOyqUz_g?feature=oembed&#38;rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"pop-art-an-introduction\">Pop art, an introduction<\/h2>\n<h3 id=\"popular-culture-popular-art\">Popular culture, \u201cpopular\u201d art<\/h3>\n<p>At first glance, Pop art might seem to glorify popular culture by elevating soup cans, comic strips and hamburgers to the status of fine art on the walls of museums. But, then again, a second look may suggest a critique of the mass marketing practices and consumer culture that emerged in the United States after World War II. Andy Warhol\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/warhol-gold-marilyn-monroe\/\"><em>Gold Marilyn Monroe<\/em><\/a>\u00a0clearly reflects this inherent irony of Pop. The central image on a gold background evokes a religious tradition of painted icons, transforming the Hollywood starlet into a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/virgin-theotokos-and-child-between-saints-theodore-and-george\/\">Byzantine Madonna<\/a>\u00a0that reflects our obsession with celebrity. Notably, Warhol\u2019s spiritual reference was especially poignant given Monroe\u2019s suicide a few months earlier. Like religious fanatics, the actress\u2019s fans worshipped their idol; yet, Warhol\u2019s sloppy\u00a0silkscreening\u00a0calls attention to the artifice of Marilyn\u2019s glamorous fa\u00e7ade and places her alongside other mass-marketed commodities like a can of soup or a box of Brillo pads.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"genesis-of-pop\">Genesis of Pop<\/h3>\n<p>In this light, it\u2019s not surprising that the term \u201cPop art\u201d first emerged in Great Britain, which suffered great economic hardship after the war. In the late 1940s, artists of the \u201cIndependent Group,\u201d first began to appropriate idealized images of the American lifestyle they found in popular magazines as part of their critique of British society.\u00a0\u00a0Critic Lawrence Alloway and artist Richard Hamilton are usually credited with coining the term, possibly in the context of Hamilton\u2019s famous collage\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/richard-hamilton-just-what-is-it\/\">Just what is it that makes today\u2019s home so different, so appealing?<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0Made to announce the Independent Group\u2019s 1956 exhibition \u201cThis Is Tomorrow,\u201d in London, the image prominently features a muscular semi-nude man, holding a phallically positioned Tootsie Pop.<\/p>\n<p>Pop art\u2019s origins, however, can be traced back even further.\u00a0\u00a0In 1917, Marcel Duchamp asserted that any object\u2014including his notorious example of a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/marcel-duchamp-fountain\/\">urinal<\/a>\u2014could be art, as long as the artist intended it as such. Artists of the 1950s built on this notion to challenge boundaries distinguishing art from real life, in disciplines of music and dance, as well as visual art. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.moma.org\/collection\/works\/78712\">Robert Rauschenberg\u2019s<\/a> desire to \u201cwork in the gap between art and life,\u201d for example, led him to incorporate such objects as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/robert-rauschenberg-bed\/\">bed pillows<\/a>, tires, and even a stuffed goat in his \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/robert-rauschenberg-canyon\/\">combine paintings<\/a>\u201d that merged features of painting and sculpture.\u00a0Likewise, Claes Oldenberg\u00a0created\u00a0<em>The Store<\/em>, an installation in a vacant storefront where he sold crudely fashioned sculptures of brand-name consumer goods. These \u201cProto-pop\u201d artists were, in part, reacting against the rigid critical structure and lofty philosophies surrounding\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/abstract-expressionism-an-introduction\/\">Abstract Expressionism<\/a>, the dominant art movement of the time; but their work also reflected the numerous social changes taking place around them.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"post-war-consumer-culture-grabs-hold-and-never-lets-go\">Post-war consumer culture grabs hold (and never lets go)<\/h3>\n<figure style=\"width: 447px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/b0df1115d24d72dcf9f396702f978f35.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/b0df1115d24d72dcf9f396702f978f35.jpeg\" alt=\"Vintage advertisement featuring a gas range stove, highlighting its modern features that make cooking easier, quicker, and cleaner. The ad includes images of the stove with labeled benefits such as automatic features, easy cleaning, and time-saving cooking, alongside a smiling woman and a kitchen setting with yellow and black accents.\" width=\"447\" height=\"640\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">c. 1950s advertisement for the American Gas Association (<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/pop-art\/?__cf_chl_f_tk=QGbs1x2aZnMHLCiSz8SbCQA59z0bR3SehcHfE7OMVhU-1783351158-1.0.1.1-GG3iaGXRID2gY3m51PgMlUNMt_aoJLXprJFFzOLRMeI\">Smarthistory<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The years following World War II saw enormous growth in the American economy, which, combined with innovations in technology and the media, spawned a consumer culture with more leisure time and expendable income than ever before. The manufacturing industry that had expanded during the war now began to mass-produce everything from hairspray and washing machines to shiny new convertibles, which advertisers claimed all would bring ultimate joy to their owners. Significantly, the development of television, as well as changes in print advertising, placed new emphasis on graphic images and recognizable brand logos\u2014something that we now take for granted in our visually saturated world.<\/p>\n<p>It was in this artistic and cultural context that Pop artists developed their distinctive style of the early 1960s. Characterized by clearly rendered images of popular subject matter, it seemed to assault the standards of modern painting, which had embraced abstraction as a reflection of universal truths and individual expression.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 1848px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Lichtenstein-copy-w-Steven-Zucker.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Lichtenstein-copy-w-Steven-Zucker.jpg\" alt=\"Pop art painting featuring a woman in a navy blue swimsuit holding a red and white ball against a yellow background on the left, and a close-up of her face with red lips and blue hair on the right. The artwork uses bold black outlines, red dot shading, and contrasting colors to emphasize facial features and vintage style.\" width=\"1848\" height=\"1457\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: Roy Lichtenstein, <em>Girl with a Ball,<\/em> 1961, oil on canvas, 153 x 91.9 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.moma.org\/collection\/works\/79665\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Museum of Modern Art, New York<\/a>); right: Detail of face showing Lichtenstein\u2019s painted Ben-Day dots, Roy Lichtenstein, <em>Girl with a Ball<\/em>, 1961, oil on canvas, 153 x 91.9 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.moma.org\/collection\/works\/79665\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Museum of Modern Art, New York,\u00a0<\/a> photo: <a href=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/5UK3RT\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Steven Zucker<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/2.0\/deed.en\">CC BY-NC-SA 2.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3 id=\"irony-and-iron-ons\">Irony and iron-ons<\/h3>\n<p>In contrast to the dripping paint and slashing brushstrokes of Abstract Expressionism\u2014and even of Proto-Pop art\u2014Pop artists applied their paint to imitate the look of industrial printing techniques. This ironic approach is exemplified by Lichtenstein\u2019s methodically painted Ben-Day dots, a mechanical process used to print pulp comics.<\/p>\n<p>As the decade progressed, artists shifted away from painting towards the use of industrial techniques. Warhol began making silkscreens, before removing himself further from the process by having others do the actual printing in his studio, aptly named \u201cThe Factory.\u201d \u00a0Similarly, Oldenburg abandoned his early installations and performances, to produce the large-scale sculptures of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/claes-oldenburg-floor-cake\/\">cake slices<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/oldenburg-lipstick-ascending-on-caterpillar-tracks\/\">lipsticks<\/a>, and clothespins that he is best known for today.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"roy-lichtenstein-look-mickey\">Roy Lichtenstein,\u00a0<em>Look Mickey<\/em><\/h2>\n<p>A major figure in the American Pop Art movement, Roy Lichtenstein is known for his appropriated comic-book style featuring hand-painted Ben-Day dots. Lichtenstein asks: can a painting of Mickey and Donald Duck be fine art?<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"oembed-5\" title=\"Pop Art: Roy Lichtenstein, Look Mickey\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/50whnpUvFDY?feature=oembed&#38;rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"why-is-this-art-andy-warhol-campbells-soup-cans\">Why is this art? Andy Warhol,\u00a0<em>Campbell\u2019s Soup Cans<\/em><\/h2>\n<p>Through Pop Art, Andy Warhol examined consumer culture, mass media, and what it meant to be famous, using media that removed the artist\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"oembed-6\" title=\"Andy Warhol&#39;s Soup Cans: Why Is This Art?\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/J2CtQD3OLRI?feature=oembed&#38;rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"andy-warhol-marilyn-diptych\">Andy Warhol, <a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/warhol-marilyn-diptych\/\"><em>Marilyn Diptych<\/em><\/a><\/h2>\n<p>Andy Warhol\u2019s\u00a0<em>Marilyn Diptych<\/em>\u00a0is made of two silver canvases on which the artist silkscreened a photograph of Marilyn Monroe fifty times. At first glance, the work\u2014which explicitly references a form of Christian painting (see below) in its title\u2014invites us to worship the legendary icon, whose image Warhol plucked from popular culture and immortalized as art.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 2560px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/158bdd65-2dd1-7def-98a7-d5671decdf62-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/158bdd65-2dd1-7def-98a7-d5671decdf62-scaled-1.jpg\" alt=\"Diptych painting depicting religious Christian iconography with Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus on left panel, surrounded by angels. Right panel shows crucifixion of Jesus with two mourners and two angels above, framed by gold background and ornate borders.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1672\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Diptych with the Virgin and Child Enthroned and the Crucifixion<\/em>, 1275\u201380, tempera on panel, 38 x 59 cm (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.artic.edu\/artworks\/16241\/diptych-of-the-virgin-and-child-enthroned-and-the-crucifixion\">Art Institute of Chicago<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/zero\/1.0\/deed.en\">CC0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>But as in all of Warhol\u2019s early paintings, this image is also a carefully crafted critique of both modern art and contemporary life.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"not-only-pop-culture\">Not only pop culture<\/h3>\n<p>With sustained looking, Warhol\u2019s works reveal that he was influenced not only by pop culture, but also by art history\u2014and especially by the art that was then popular in New York. For example, in this painting, we can identify the hallmarks of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/abstract-expressionism-an-introduction\/\">Abstract Expressionist<\/a>\u00a0painters like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 1226px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/VisitorMarilyn.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/VisitorMarilyn.jpg\" alt=\"Photograph of a gallery setting featuring two adjacent pop art portraits of Marilyn Monroe, one in vibrant colors with yellow, pink, and blue tones, and the other in grayscale. A person stands observing the artwork, highlighting contrast between colorful repetition and monochrome fading effects, emphasizing themes of celebrity and media reproduction.\" width=\"1226\" height=\"811\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Visitor, Tate Modern, London (photo: <a href=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/7DdZWu\">Barbara Piancastelli<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/2.0\/deed.en\">CC BY-NC-SA 2.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>As in the work of these\u00a0older artists, the\u00a0monumental scale of\u00a0<em>Marilyn Diptych<\/em>\u00a0(more than six feet by nine feet) demands our attention and announces the importance of the subject matter. Furthermore, the seemingly careless handling of the paint and its \u201callover composition\u201d\u2014the even distribution of form and color across the entire canvas, such that the viewer\u2019s eyes wander without focusing on one spot\u2014are each hallmarks of Abstract Expressionism, as exemplified by Jackson Pollock\u2019s drip paintings. Yet Warhol references these painters only to undermine the supposed expressiveness of their gestures: like\u00a0Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, whose work he\u00a0admired, he uses photographic imagery, the silkscreen process and repetition to make art that is not about his interior life, but rather about the culture in which he lived.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"emotional-flatness\">Emotional flatness<\/h3>\n<p>Warhol takes as the subject of his painting an impersonal image. Though he was an award-winning illustrator, instead of making his own drawing of Monroe, he appropriates an image that already exists. Furthermore, the image is not some other artist\u2019s drawing, but a photograph made for mass reproduction. Even if we don\u2019t recognize the source (a publicity photo for Monroe\u2019s 1953 film\u00a0<em>Niagara<\/em>), we know the image is a photo, not only because of its verisimilitude, but also because of the heightened contrast between the lit and shadowed areas of her face, which we associate with a photographer\u2019s flash.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3480\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3480\" style=\"width: 224px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3480 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Monroe_in_Niagara_1953_publicity_photo-224x300.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white photograph of a woman with styled blonde hair, wearing a dark sleeveless dress with a plunging neckline and light-colored collar. The portrait captures a confident expression with subtle makeup, including dark lipstick and earrings.\" width=\"224\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Monroe_in_Niagara_1953_publicity_photo-224x300.jpg 224w, https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Monroe_in_Niagara_1953_publicity_photo-65x87.jpg 65w, https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Monroe_in_Niagara_1953_publicity_photo-225x301.jpg 225w, https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Monroe_in_Niagara_1953_publicity_photo-350x468.jpg 350w, https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2026\/06\/Monroe_in_Niagara_1953_publicity_photo.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 224px) 100vw, 224px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3480\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Publicity still for the film Niagara, 1953 (Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Monroe_in_Niagara_(1953_publicity_photo).jpg\">Wikimedia<\/a>, License: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a> in the United States)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>True to form, the actress looks at us seductively from under heavy-lidded eyes and with parted lips; but her expression is also a bit inscrutable, and the repetition remakes her face into an eerie, inanimate mask. Warhol\u2019s use of the silkscreen technique further \u201cflattens\u201d the star\u2019s face. By screening broad planes of unmodulated color, the artist removes\u00a0the gradual shading that creates a sense of three-dimensional volume, and suspends the actress in an abstract void. Through these choices, Warhol transforms the literal flatness of the paper-thin\u00a0publicity photo into an emotional \u201cflatness,\u201d and the actress into a kind of automaton. In this way, the painting suggests that \u201cMarilyn Monroe,\u201d\u00a0a manufactured star with a made-up name, is merely a one-dimensional (sex) symbol\u2014perhaps not the most appropriate object of our almost religious devotion.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"repetitions\">Repetitions<\/h3>\n<p>While Warhol\u2019s silkscreened repetitions flatten Monroe\u2019s identity, they\u00a0also complicate\u00a0his own identity as the artist of this work. The silkscreen process allowed Warhol (or his assistants) to reproduce the same image over and over again, using multiple colors.\u00a0Once the screens are manufactured and the colors are chosen, the artist simply spreads inks evenly over the screens using a wide squeegee.\u00a0Though there are differences from one face to the next, these appear to be the accidental byproducts of a quasi-mechanical process, rather than the product of the artist\u2019s judgment. Warhol\u2019s rote painting technique\u00a0is echoed by the rigid composition of the work,\u00a0a five-by-five grid of faces, repeated\u00a0across the two halves of its surface.<\/p>\n<p>Here, as in many Neo-Dada,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/an-introduction-to-minimalism\/\">minimalist<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/conceptual-art-introduction\/\">conceptual<\/a>\u00a0works, the grid is like a program that the artist uses to \u201cautomate\u201d the process of composing the work, instead of relying on subjective thoughts or feelings to make decisions. In other words, Warhol\u2019s \u201ccool,\u201d detached composition is the opposite of the intimate, soulful encounter with the canvas associated with Abstract Expressionism.\u00a0But whereas most works that use\u00a0grids are abstract, here, the the grid repeats a photo of a movie star, causing the painting to resemble a photographer\u2019s contact sheet, or a series of film strips placed side-by-side. These references to mechanical forms of reproduction further prove that for Warhol, painting is no longer an\u00a0elevated medium distinct from popular culture.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"ghostly-symmetry\">Ghostly symmetry<\/h3>\n<p>Aside from radically changing our notion of painting, Warhol\u2019s choices create a symmetry between the artist and his subject, who each seem to be less than fully human: the artist becomes a machine, just as the actress becomes a mask or a shell.\u00a0Another word we could use to describe the presence of both the artist and the actress might be\u00a0<em>ghostly<\/em>, and in fact, Warhol started making his series of \u201cMarilyn\u201d paintings only after the star had died of an apparent suicide, and eventually collected them with other disturbing paintings under the title \u201cDeath in America.\u201d Her death haunts this painting: on the left, her purple, garishly made-up face resembles an embalmed corpse, while the lighter tones of some of the faces on the right make it seem like she is disappearing before our eyes.<\/p>\n<p>Warhol once noted that through repeated exposure to an image, we become de-sensitized to it.\u00a0In that case, by repeating Monroe\u2019s mask-like face, he not only drains away her life, but also ours as well, by\u00a0deadening\u00a0our emotional response to her death. Then again, by making her face so strange and unfamiliar, he might also be trying to re-sensitize us to her image, so that we remember she isn\u2019t just a symbol, but a person whom we might pity. From the perspective of psychoanalytic theory, he may even be forcing us to relive, and therefore work through, the traumatic shock of her death. The painting is\u00a0more than a mere celebration of Monroe\u2019s iconic status.\u00a0It is an invitation to consider the consequences of the increasing role of mass media images in our everyday lives.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"minimalism-an-introduction\">Minimalism, an introduction<\/h2>\n<h3 id=\"a-reductive-abstract-art\">A reductive abstract art<\/h3>\n<p>Although many works of art can be described as \u201cminimal,\u201d the name Minimalism refers specifically to a kind of reductive abstract art that emerged during the early 1960s.\u00a0At the time, some critics preferred names like \u201cABC,\u201d \u201cBoring,\u201d or \u201cLiteral\u201d Art, and even \u201cNo-Art Nihilism,\u201d which they believed best summed up the literal presentation and lack of expressive content characterizing this new aesthetic. <a class=\"footnote\" title=\"These critiques followed the Jewish Museum\u2019s 1966 exhibition titled\u00a0Primary Structures, which was the first major exhibition to showcase a survey of minimalist artworks in the United States. See Michael Fried, \u201cArt and Objecthood,\u201d\u00a0Artforum, volume 5, number 10 (1967), pp. 12\u201323.\" id=\"return-footnote-3367-3\" href=\"#footnote-3367-3\" aria-label=\"Footnote 3\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[3]<\/sup><\/a> While scholars have recently argued for a broader definition of Minimalism that would include artists in a number of disciplines, the term remains closely linked to sculpture of the period.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.guggenheim.org\/artwork\/1741\">Donald Judd\u2019s\u00a0<em>Untitled\u00a0<\/em>(1969)<\/a> is characteristic in its use of spare geometric forms, repeated to create a unified whole that calls attention to its physical size in relationship to the viewer. Like most Minimalists, Judd used industrial materials and processes to manufacture his work, but his preference for color and shiny surfaces distinguished him among the artists who pioneered the style.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"lack-of-apparent-meaning\">Lack of apparent meaning<\/h3>\n<p>What most people find disturbing about Minimalism is its lack of any apparent meaning. Like\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/pop-art\/\">Pop Art<\/a>, which emerged simultaneously, Minimalism presented ordinary subject matter in a literal way that lacked expressive features or metaphorical content; likewise, the use of commercial processes smacked of mass production and seemed to reject traditional expectations of skill and originality in art. In these ways, both movements were, in part, a response to the dominance of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/abstract-expressionism-an-introduction\/\">Abstract Expressionism<\/a>, which had held that painting conveys profound subjective meaning. However, whereas Pop artists depicted recognizable images from\u00a0kitsch\u00a0sources, the Minimalists exhibited their plywood boxes, fluorescent lights, and concrete blocks directly on gallery floors, which seemed even more difficult to distinguish as \u201cArt.\u201d (One well-known story tells of an art dealer who visited\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/carl-andre-lever\/\">Carl Andre<\/a>\u2019s studio during the winter and unknowingly burned a sculpture for firewood while the artist was away.) <a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Hollis Frampton, \u201cLetter to Enno Develing,\u201d\u00a0On the Camera Arts and Consecutive Matters: The Writings of Hollis Frampton, edited by Bruce Jenkins (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2015), pp. 281\u201382.\" id=\"return-footnote-3367-4\" href=\"#footnote-3367-4\" aria-label=\"Footnote 4\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[4]<\/sup><\/a> Moreover, when asked to explain his black-striped paintings of 1959,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/stella-marriage\/\">Frank Stella<\/a>\u00a0responded, \u201cWhat you see is what you see.\u201d <a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Frank Stella, \u201cNew Nihilism or New Art?\u201d by Bruce Glaser, WBAI-FM, New York, February, 1964.\" id=\"return-footnote-3367-5\" href=\"#footnote-3367-5\" aria-label=\"Footnote 5\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[5]<\/sup><\/a> Stella\u2019s comment implied that not only was there no meaning, but that none was necessary to demonstrate the object\u2019s artistic value.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"writings\">Writings<\/h3>\n<p>Given these facts, it may seem odd to learn that hundreds of essays and books have been written about Minimalism, many by the artists themselves. It is significant that, although Minimalist art shares similar features, the artists associated with the movement developed their aesthetic ideas from a variety of philosophical and artistic influences. Through their writings, Minimalist artists put forth distinctive positions about the work they produced. In addition to his role as a sculptor, Judd was a prominent art critic, and his reviews provide eloquent explanations of his intent\u2014shared by Stella and Dan Flavin\u2014to eliminate the illusionism and \u201csubjective\u201d decision-making of traditional painting. <a class=\"footnote\" title=\"For example, see Donald Judd, \u201cSpecific Objects,\u201d\u00a0Arts Yearbook, volume 8 (1965), pp. 74\u201382.\" id=\"return-footnote-3367-6\" href=\"#footnote-3367-6\" aria-label=\"Footnote 6\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[6]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/robert-morris-untitled-l-beams\/\">Robert Morris<\/a>, whose sculpture was influenced by avant-garde dance and performance, published a series of texts, arguing for sculpture to be understood in physical and psychological terms; and, Sol LeWitt introduced the term\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/conceptual-art-introduction\/\">Conceptual Art<\/a>\u00a0to explain the use of seriality and systemic structure in his cubic grid-like forms. <a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Robert Morris, \u201cNotes on Sculpture,\u201d\u00a0Artforum, volume 4, number 6 (1966), pp. 42\u201344 and Sol Lewitt, \u201cParagraphs on Conceptual Art,\u201d\u00a0Artforum, volume 5, number 10 (1967), pp. 79\u201383.\" id=\"return-footnote-3367-7\" href=\"#footnote-3367-7\" aria-label=\"Footnote 7\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[7]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<h3 id=\"legacy-1\">Legacy<\/h3>\n<p>In this way, the artists, along with critics and art historians over the past 50 years, have developed a critical discourse that surrounds the art objects, but which is essential to understanding Minimalism itself. Likewise, such artists as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/richard-serra-tilted-arc\/\">Richard Serra<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/becher-water-towers\/\">Bernd and Hilla Becher<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/maya-lin-vietnam-veterans-memorial\/\">Maya Lin<\/a>, and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/who-is-rachel-whiteread\/\">Rachel Whiteread<\/a>, who use Minimalist practice of the early 1960s as a point of departure for their own creative exploration, continue to contribute to the movement\u2019s legacy and our understanding of its significance today.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"conclusion-14\">Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>Abstract-Expressionism, Pop Art, and Minimalism represent three stylistic movements that serve as the foundation for later 20<sup>th<\/sup> century and contemporary art. Abstract-Expressionism focused on large-scale canvases that explored the moral crisis of art after the Second World War. In a rejection of the grandiose statements of Abstract-Expressionism, Pop Art emerged as a direct descendant of Dada. Working with the concepts of commercial culture and mass media, Pop artists rejected the presence of an artist\u2019s gesture and the often-obscure abstraction of the previous generation. Instead, Pop artists favored clearer subject matter and material rooted in the popular culture of the 20<sup>th<\/sup> century. Also developing from the origins of Dada, Minimalism represented a different response to Abstract-Expressionism. Minimalists often removed gesture to focus on the mass-produced quality of modern materials and sought to collapse the boundaries of how we define art. Each of these three styles inspired numerous movements of the later 20<sup>th<\/sup> century and continue to inspire artists living and working today.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"citation-and-licensing-14\">Citation and Licensing<\/h3>\n<p>The following sections were written by Chelsea Wright and licensed <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/4.0\/\">CC BY-NC-SA 4.0<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Chapter Overview and Introduction<\/li>\n<li>Focus artwork and term list compiled by Chelsea Wright<\/li>\n<li>Practicing Visual Analysis<\/li>\n<li>Conclusion<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The following articles from <em>Smarthistory<\/em> licensed <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/4.0\/\">CC BY-NC-SA 4.0<\/a> were remixed and adapted for the chapter:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Dr. Kelly Enright, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/1945-80-in-the-united-states-an-introduction\/\">1945\u201380 in the United States, an introduction<\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, June 25, 2024.<\/li>\n<li>Dr. Virginia B. Spivey, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/abstract-expressionism-an-introduction\/\">Abstract Expressionism, an introduction<\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, August 9, 2015.<\/li>\n<li>Smarthistory, \u201c<a href=\"\/smarthistory.org\/artist\/jackson-pollock\/\">Jackson Pollock<\/a>,\u201d in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/autumn-rhythm\/\">Jackson Pollock,\u00a0<em>Autumn Rhythm<\/em><\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, December 3, 2020.<\/li>\n<li>Smarthistory, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/artist\/willem-de-kooning\/\">Willem de Kooning<\/a>,\u201d in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/de-k-woman\/\">Willem de Kooning,\u00a0<em>Woman, I<\/em><\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, October 8, 2016.<\/li>\n<li>Smarthistory, \u201c<a href=\"\/smarthistory.org\/artist\/mark-rothko\/\">Mark Rothko<\/a>,\u201d in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Dr. Margaret C. Conrads and Dr. Steven Zucker, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/rothko-orange\/\">Mark Rothko,\u00a0<em>No. 210\/No. 211 (Orange)<\/em><\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>Smarthistory, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/artist\/helen-frankenthaler\/\">Helen Frankenthaler<\/a>,\u201d in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/frankenthaler-sea\/\">Helen Frankenthaler,\u00a0<em>Mountains and Sea<\/em><\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, June 19, 2018.<\/li>\n<li>Dr. Virginia B. Spivey, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/pop-art\/\">Pop art, an introduction<\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, July 15, 2024.<\/li>\n<li>Smarthistory, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/artist\/roy-lichtenstein\/\">Roy Lichtenstein<\/a>,\u201d in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/roy-lichtenstein-look-mickey\/\">Roy Lichtenstein,\u00a0<em>Look Mickey<\/em><\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, August 25, 2025.<\/li>\n<li>Smarthistory, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/artist\/andy-warhol\/\">Andy Warhol<\/a>,\u201d in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Sal Khan and Dr. Steven Zucker, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/why-is-this-art-andy-warhol-campbells-soup-cans\/\">Why is this art? Andy Warhol,\u00a0<em>Campbell\u2019s Soup Cans<\/em><\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, December 8, 2015.<\/li>\n<li>Tina Rivers Ryan, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/warhol-marilyn-diptych\/\">Andy Warhol,\u00a0<em>Marilyn Diptych<\/em><\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, August 9, 2015.<\/li>\n<li>Dr. Virginia B. Spivey, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/smarthistory.org\/an-introduction-to-minimalism\/\">Minimalism, an introduction<\/a>,&#8221; in\u00a0<em>Smarthistory<\/em>, August 9, 2015.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr class=\"before-footnotes clear\" \/><div class=\"footnotes\"><ol><li id=\"footnote-3367-1\">Barnett Newman, \u201cResponse to the Reverend Thomas F. Mathews,\u201d\u00a0<em>Revelation, Place and Symbol: Journal of the First Congress on Religion, Architecture, and the Visual Art<\/em>\u00a0(New York, 1969), pp. 129\u201334. <a href=\"#return-footnote-3367-1\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 1\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-3367-2\">Letter from Mark Rothko and Adolph Gottlieb to Edward Alden Jewell Art Editor,<em>\u00a0New York Times<\/em>, June 7, 1943. <a href=\"#return-footnote-3367-2\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 2\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-3367-3\">These critiques followed the Jewish Museum\u2019s 1966 exhibition titled\u00a0<em>Primary Structures<\/em>, which was the first major exhibition to showcase a survey of minimalist artworks in the United States. See Michael Fried, \u201cArt and Objecthood,\u201d\u00a0<em>Artforum<\/em>, volume 5, number 10 (1967), pp. 12\u201323. <a href=\"#return-footnote-3367-3\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 3\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-3367-4\">Hollis Frampton, \u201cLetter to Enno Develing,\u201d\u00a0<em>On the Camera Arts and Consecutive Matters: The Writings of Hollis Frampton<\/em>, edited by Bruce Jenkins (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2015), pp. 281\u201382. <a href=\"#return-footnote-3367-4\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 4\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-3367-5\">Frank Stella, \u201cNew Nihilism or New Art?\u201d by Bruce Glaser, WBAI-FM, New York, February, 1964. <a href=\"#return-footnote-3367-5\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 5\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-3367-6\">For example, see Donald Judd, \u201cSpecific Objects,\u201d\u00a0<em>Arts Yearbook<\/em>, volume 8 (1965), pp. 74\u201382. <a href=\"#return-footnote-3367-6\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 6\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-3367-7\">Robert Morris, \u201cNotes on Sculpture,\u201d\u00a0<em>Artforum<\/em>, volume 4, number 6 (1966), pp. 42\u201344 and Sol Lewitt, \u201cParagraphs on Conceptual Art,\u201d\u00a0<em>Artforum<\/em>, volume 5, number 10 (1967), pp. 79\u201383. <a href=\"#return-footnote-3367-7\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 7\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"menu_order":16,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-3367","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":3,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/3367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/3367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3500,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/3367\/revisions\/3500"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/3"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/3367\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=3367"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=3367"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/arthc1200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=3367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}