Appropriation: An Historical Image.

Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923-1997), Man with Folded Arms, 1962. Oil on canvas, 70 x 48"(176 x 122 cm). Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. The Panza Collection. 84.4

Roy Lichtenstein is best known for appropriating comic book panels, advertisements, and other two-dimensional media. He used oil paint and brush to employ the flat, heavily outlined style of commercial reproduction. Commercial printers use various concentrations of dots to suggest shading. Lichtenstein painted imitations of these dots on his canvases. By imitating common methods of reproduction, Lichtenstein reminded us that he was painting an idea of a thing, not the actual thing itself. Lichtenstein borrowed this image from a textbook diagram by educator Erle Loran of an original painting by French artist Paul Cezanne. A controversy developed about whether Lichtenstein transformed Loran's image or merely copied it. Art critics feared that copying works without transforming them might lead to a rejection of the modern notion that art had to be an original creation. Loran even threatened to sue Lichtenstein, but never did.

What do you think about the fact that Lichtenstein copied something from art history instead of using his own ideas? Does a work of art have to be original to be art? What does Lichtenstein seem to say about art when he uses a comic book style?

GalleryCard submitted by Suzanne Isken, Coordinator of School and Teacher Programs, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California.