In the decade after the mid-1950s, pop art developed a new art school in the United States and Britain, which was called "Pop Art". These people, known as "pop artists", have a * * * similarity in their creations during this period. They take popular commercial cultural images and everyday things in urban life as their themes, and their creative techniques often reflect the characteristics of industrialization and commercialization. The factors leading to pop art can not be seen everywhere, and the urban culture after the war between Britain and the United States is a special soil for its growth. Only artists who are in close contact with this urban culture can grasp the unique style and expression of pop art. People think that the narrow sense of pop art originated in Britain, not the United States. 1952 At the end of the year, a group of young painters, sculptors, architects and critics held a meeting at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London. This self-proclaimed "independent" group focuses on popular culture and its significance, such as western movies, space novels, billboards and the beauty of machines. These phenomena were considered anti-aesthetic at that time. This group is obsessed with the new urban pop culture, especially attracted by American expressions. On the one hand, in the eyes of the British, the United States at that time was an ideal country, with everything from nylon products to new motorcycles. On the other hand, the British art world in the 1940s was shrouded in the atmosphere of serious romantic struggle, and British pop art was a response to it. 1956, the "independents" held an exhibition entitled "This is tomorrow". The most infectious and influential work in the exhibition is a poster put by richard hamilton at the entrance, entitled ‖ What makes today's family so charming? (figure 1). The picture is a modern apartment cut from the illustrated newspaper, which contains a muscular man and an arrogant naked woman. There are many cultural products in the apartment: TV, tape recorder, enlarged comic book cover, a Ford badge and an advertisement for a vacuum cleaner. Through the window in the painting, you can see a movie screen showing a close-up of Al Jolson in the movie Jazz Singer. The man still has a huge lollipop in his hand. There are three big letters POP on the candy. The word pop art comes from this. Pop is not only the suffix of lollipop, but also the abbreviation of "fashion". In the United States, pop art is a response to abstract expressionism prevailing in the 1950s. On the one hand, the works of abstract expressionism are regarded as the display of the artist's unique personality, which is completely personal, subjective and spiritual. It emphasizes the purity of art and becomes an art with noble spirit. On the other hand, because this spirituality lies in improvisation, it is completely personal, and many latecomers imitate it one after another, so it seems that everyone can do this "elegant" art. Unfortunately, most of these works only have dazzling pictures, but it is difficult to show their spirit. It can be said that there are many eyes, but there are really few. Pop art boldly tries new materials, new themes and new forms to solve the problem of abstract expressionism. In 1960s, pop art brought "life" and modern city life into museums and art galleries. The first collective exhibition that made the title of "Pop" popular around the world was the "New Realistic Artists" exhibition held by 1962 in Dzhanis Gallery, Sydney, which brought together artists of this trend (including European artists). Followed by two exhibitions held by 1963: "Six Artists Exhibition" and "Public Image Exhibition". To some extent, America has really influenced all the pop art in the world. Due to the strong influence of American business culture, Hollywood movies and McDonald's hamburgers can be seen in almost any country in the world, which has penetrated into many cultures and become a popular culture that can be consumed. On the other hand, pop art is an "industrial" art. Roy roy lichtenstein once said: "As the United States is more and more impacted by industrialization and capitalism, its values seem to be more distorted ... I think the significance of my creation is to show that it is industrialized, which is also the direction of the whole world. Europe will soon do the same, so pop art will no longer be American, but global. " Pop art has resisted the motto of a famous critic: great art must be difficult art, and pop artists often use collage or batch reproduction, which seems easier. "Pop art is instant coffee and wide screen in modern movies. It is not Latin under the rule of monks, but popular art "The appeal of popular art is as wide as its scope. It accepts everything in life and all the more common aspects. It is still art, but it is by no means art for art's sake. When it comes to Anglo-American pop art, the first thing to mention is the Americans Rauschenberg and jasper johns, and the Englishman richard hamilton. Rauschenberg was born in Texas on 1925 and began to study in the late 1940s. Influenced by abstract expressionism in his early days, he painted a series of all-white paintings in the early 1950s, and the only image on them was the shadow of the viewer. Later, he painted a series of all-black paintings, but these paintings were not his first. Later, he developed in the direction of "combination painting", using ordinary things in life to form pictures-beer bottles, waste paper boxes, old tires, newspapers, photos, ropes, sacks, pillows and so on. Canvas and objects fixed on canvas constitute a work, and Bed (Figure 2) is a typical work of this kind. The author simply hangs sleeping bags and pillows on the canvas, and then sprinkles some paint on them. The purpose of using ready-made products in his works is to break the boundary between art and life. As he said, "painting is both art and life, and neither is made." What I want to do is in between. " At the same time, his works have traces of abstract expressionism, often with great boldness of vision. Rauschenberg's philosophy of art was influenced by John Cage, an experimental artist he met while working in Montenegro College. He met Cage in 195 1 year, and they were very close. Cage influenced Rauschenberg from the perspective of Zen: "Judgment is meaningless, because there is no fact that this thing is better than others. Art should not be different from life, but an act in life." During his creative career, Rauschenberg kept in touch with the surrounding cities and technical societies. His "comprehensive" means can reflect the rich images of an era. For example, in the symbol (Figure 3), we can see all the information with the characteristics of the United States in the 1960s, including the star president Kennedy, the black leader Martin Luther King, the Vietnam War soldier, and the astronaut on the moon. John's career has many similarities with Rauschenberg's. At the critical moment of their development, they once shared a studio. John is famous for his unique and ordinary image. A row of numbers (Figure 4- 1), targets (Figure 4-2), American flags (Figure 5), American maps and so on have become classics of pop art. He chose these images because he thought they would not produce any energy. What he wants to emphasize is that "painting is itself, not the representation of any other object". John has no intention to express his criticism of art or society through his works. In his view, what an artist wants to do is his absolute freedom and should not be restricted by taking into account evaluation. He believes that in most cases, works will be misunderstood and misused, and artists can't control the situation and the way his works are evaluated. He doesn't mind this interesting situation at all. One of his famous sculptures is to copy two beer cans with iron (Figure 6), which is usually understood as a criticism of some social status quo. But in fact, this creation is purely accidental. "I use small objects-flashlights and light bulbs-to make sculptures. Then a story happened. Somehow, William DeCunin was annoyed by my agent. He said,' That son of a bitch, if you give him two beer cans, he can sell them.' When I heard this sentence, I thought,' What a nice sculpture-two beer cans.' It seemed exactly to my taste, so I made them-and then my agent sold them. "In the British pop art movement, the artist who is as famous as Rauschenberg and John in the United States is richard hamilton. These three people are more similar in their strong interest in Dadaism. Hamilton's personal growth process has had an important impact on his artistic achievements. Compared with most other artists, he is actually a self-taught person. 14 years old began to work in advertising after graduating from primary school, and at the same time attended night classes in many art schools. His experience as a teacher has become another powerful influence on his painting career. Teaching design courses for a long time makes him pay special attention to the ability to solve problems, and also makes him often a pragmatist. 1957 he said that the quality he pursues is popular, short-lived, affordable, funny, sexy, gimmicky and charming, and it must be cheap and mass-produced. Although Hamilton widely uses American themes, he is not an American-style artist. He is always willing to explain his works, sometimes in great detail. For example, the work ‖ She ‖ is a collection of many advertising pictures: there are pictures of "Yang Jiao" brand refrigerators, advertisements of vacuum cleaners and other electrical appliances, and pictures of "Gentleman" magazine nailed to the wall. Hamilton attached a long explanation to this work: "Women in art in the 1950s are out of place-she reminds us of the smell in sewers, morbid obesity, pink forked legs, stupidity and lewdness, and nothing like the image of a cold woman outside of art works. That kind of woman is really lewd, and she is especially clever when she shows sexual desire. Despite the most expensive jewelry, people still regard her as a fashionable ornament. From the advertising point of view, the worst thing for a woman is that she can't reach harmony with the environment gracefully-the harmony between a woman and the environment, just like the harmony between her and clothes, can determine our evaluation of her. Sex is everywhere, and its symbols can be found in mass-produced charming luxury goods-fleshy plastic and smooth and more emotional metal. Later, I dreamed of a white Christmas, which made a series of elaborate transformations on a focal plane. In particular, Hamilton changed the color positive film into the color negative film, and changed the white singer in the film into a black singer, which ironically hinted at the singer's song title. However, this irony does not rule out nostalgia. Hamilton's works, like those of other British pop artists, have a faint sadness, which makes his works more attractive than those of American pop artists.