Duchamp’s ideas, Hamilton consistently combined elements of pop-
ular art and fine art, seeing both as belonging to the whole world of
visual communication. He created Just What Is It? for the poster and
catalogue of one section of an exhibition titled This Is Tomorrow,
which included images from Hollywood cinema, science fiction, the
mass media, and one reproduction of a van Gogh painting (to repre-
sent popular fine artworks).
The fantasy interior in Hamilton’s collage reflects the values of
modern consumer culture through figures and objects cut from
glossy magazines.Just What Is It? includes references to mass media
(the television, the theater marquee outside the window, the news-
paper), advertising (Hoover vacuums, Ford cars, Armour hams,
Tootsie Pops), and popular culture (the girlie magazine, body-
builder Charles Atlas, romance comic books). Scholars have written
much about the possible deep message of this piece, and few would
deny the work’s sardonic effect, whether or not the artist intended to
make a pointed comment. Artworks of this sort stimulated the
viewer’s wide-ranging speculation about society’s values, and this
kind of intellectual toying with mass-media meaning and imagery
typified Pop Art in England and Europe.JASPER JOHNSAlthough Pop Art originated in England, the
movement found its greatest articulation and success in the United
States, in large part because the more fully matured American
consumer culture provided a fertile environment in which the
movement flourished through the 1960s. Indeed, Independent
Group members claimed their inspiration came from Hollywood,
Detroit, and New York’s Madison Avenue, paying homage to Amer-
ica’s predominance in the realms of mass media, mass production,
and advertising. One of the artists pivotal to the early development
of American Pop was Jasper Johns(b. 1930), who sought to draw
attention to common objects in the world—what he called things
“seen but not looked at.”^16 To this end, he created several series of
paintings of targets, flags, numbers, and alphabets. For example,Flag
(FIG. 36-21) depicts an object people view frequently but rarely
scrutinize. The highly textured surface of the work is the result of
Johns’s use ofencaustic,an ancient method of painting with liquidwax and dissolved pigment (see “Encaustic Painting,” Chapter 10,
page 275). First, the artist embedded a collage of newspaper scraps
or photographs in wax. He then painted over them with the encaus-
tic. Because the wax hardened quickly, Johns could work rapidly, and
the translucency of the wax allows the viewer to see the layered
painting process.ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG Johns’s friend Robert Rausch-
enberg(1925–2008) began using mass-media images in his work in
the 1950s. Rauschenberg set out to create works that would be open
and indeterminate, and he began by making combines,which inter-
sperse painted passages with sculptural elements. Combines are, in a
sense, Rauschenberg’s personal variation on assemblages,artworks
constructed from already existing objects. At times, these combines
seem to be sculptures with painting incorporated into certain sec-
tions. Others seem to be paintings with three-dimensional objects
attached to the surface. In the 1950s, assemblages usually contained
an array of art reproductions, magazine and newspaper clippings,
and passages painted in an Abstract Expressionist style. In the early
1960s, Rauschenberg adopted the commercial medium ofsilk-screen
printing,first in black and white and then in color, and began filling
entire canvases with appropriated news images and anonymous
photographs of city scenes.
Canyon (FIG. 36-22) is typical of Rauschenberg’s combines.
Pieces of printed paper and photographs cover parts of the canvas.36-22Robert Rauschenberg,Canyon,1959. Oil, pencil, paper,
fabric, metal, cardboard box, printed paper, printed reproductions,
photograph, wood, paint tube, and mirror on canvas, with oil on bald
eagle, string, and pillow, 6 93 – 4 5 10 2 . Sonnabend Collection.
Art © Robert Rauschenberg/Licensed by VAGA, New York.
Rauschenberg’s “combines” intersperse painted passages with
sculptural elements. Canyonincorporates pigment on canvas with
pieces of printed paper, photographs, a pillow, and a stuffed eagle.36-21Jasper Johns,Flag,1954–1955, dated on reverse 1954.
Encaustic, oil, and collage on fabric mounted on plywood, 3 6 –^14
5 ^5 – 8 . Museum of Modern Art, New York (gift of Philip Johnson in honor
of Alfred H. Barr Jr.). Art © Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York.
American Pop artist Jasper Johns wanted to draw attention to common
objects that people view frequently but rarely scrutinize. He made
several series of paintings of targets, flags, numbers, and alphabets.982 Chapter 36 EUROPE AND AMERICA AFTER 19451 ft.1 ft.36-21AJOHNS,
Three Flags,
1958.