Water Lilies with Cloud by Roy Lichtenstein

Water Lilies with Cloud by Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein takes a modernist perspective of the picture plane by utilizing a method of commercial design through comic strips and advertisement. Lichtenstein integrates the readymade quality of screen prints and integrates a painterly gesture with the use of thick lines, flat surface planes, and obscured perspective.

Water Lilies with Cloud is from a group of six works that form Lichtenstein’s ‘Water Lilies’ series which pay homage to the water lily paintings of Impressionist artist Claude Monet. These innovative works were made on stainless steel to appear to reflected like water. Lichtenstein had a long-standing fascination with reflections which he explored as a motif in many other prints and paintings.

Roy Lichtenstein’s early appropriation of the aesthetics of American popular culture made him integral to the development of Pop art. Roy Lichtenstein was a student of the work of Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, and Paul Klee, Roy Lichtenstein incorporated elements of contemporary art theory and popular print media into his painting. In 1961 Roy Lichtenstein began to replicate the Benday dot system used in mass-circulation printed sources such as comics, newspapers, and billboards; this would become a signature element of Roy Lichtensteins painting and sculpture. By mimicking this industrial method and appropriating images from high and low culture, Roy Lichtenstein’s work realized a broader accessibility that had not yet been achieved in contemporary art. Roy Lichtenstein’s most recognizable series evolved from imagery drawn from popular culture: advertising images, war-time comics, and pin-up portraits, as well as traditional painting genres.