Before the Digital Age, in the Print Age of the 20th century, there was the general view that art belonged to one of three categories. I think of it as the Art Pyramid, with the bottom level having the largest audience, and the top having the smallest.
I’ll add socio-economic labels, based on the amount of money that was required to enjoy each of the levels.
- Art = upper class
- Illustration = middle class
- Cartooning = working class
Where the distinctions get muddied a bit is with an artist like Andrew Wyeth, who could be viewed as having followed in the footsteps of his illustrator father, N.C. Wyeth. Frank Frazetta was a comic book artist whose paintings were in the tradition of pulp magazine covers, and yet they had a quality that rose above the subject matter.
In Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, fictional billionaire Miles Bron decorates his Greek island estate with fine art that he has purchased. He even has the Mona Lisa on loan from the Louvre, explaining that the museum needed money during the pandemic. One of the pieces in Bron’s collection, shown in the background here, is Girl with Hair Ribbon, by Roy Lichtenstein.
This is the complete image, as appropriated by Lichtenstein.
I say appropriated because he copied it from a DC romance comic book drawing by John Romita, Sr., as revealed by fellow Westfield State alum, David Barsalou.
This video has a British upper class analysis of Girl with Hair Ribbon. The picture’s “intellectual provocation” and lack of “organic unity” are considered apart from its original context, except for a generic reference to “the comic book cartoon.”
How did Roy Lichtenstein elevate a lowly comic book drawing by John Romita from the bottom of the Art Pyramid to the top? This is the subject of a new documentary, Whaam! Blam! Roy Lichtenstein and the Art of Appropriation. Personally, I have come around to the view that Lichtenstein went beyond taking inspiration from comic book panels to the outright and sustained swiping of work done by others.
https://gizmodo.com/lichtenstein-comic-art-appropriation-documentary-review-1850042171
