Pop: Chapter 14a

     It takes a few seconds for the link to download.  I guess Dad wasn't as current with the technology as he thought.  Still, I've encountered worse delays, on recent sites at that.  The document, no, two documents are on the link.  An original version and the revised version that was printed.  I click on the revised version first.

    I quickly scan it, trying to catch anything from the new editorial, but I stop after a few paragraphs. This may have been the version that saw print, but it still had the editorial notes attached.  I can't remember how such programs worked back then, but it would make sense that a major newspaper would be using the   best version available.

    I decide to bring up the original and compare the two side by side.  Maybe it will be easier to read that way.

    One glance at the original confirms my decision.  I'm guessing Dad left the notes in the printed version because he didn't like some of the editorial comments.  Wait, not all of the comments were left in.  I see a few punctuation marks that were replaced and a few misspellings and word choices that were changed.  It looks like he only left in the notes about content and not grammar.  

    The differences are more glaring as I read the first unaltered lines.

   Yes, pop artists used familiar mass-produced images and products for the basis of 

their works.  Yet, artist been borrowing from others for centuries.  The problems some

critics have is that the pop movement did so from such 'base' commercial images

and not from loftier sources.  The source material for a work of art does not have to be

always taken into account to make a work successful or 'great.'  In fact, such sources 

might be considered as secondary to the value of the final product.

        Exactly as I thought.  While the new editorial borrows its viewpoint from the revised version, Dad's original is much more understanding of pop culture.  I read on.

Warhol chose to use familiar soup cans because they were familiar.  If he had chosen

a lesser known brand, such works would not have stood out.  While familiar, those cans

were designed, at least on a basic level, to stand out, make a statement.  While the details

of the design of those cans might be changed, the overall look has to stay the same.

Otherwise, the cans would lose their familiarity, and sales would suffer for it.

    The same goes for the portraits of celebrities, such as the ubiquitous Monroe.  Warhol

chose her because of that mass-produced symbolism of beauty and fame.  Even with the coloration

changed, her look remained recognizable.  The varying color pallets emphasizes that

concept of beauty, how it is separated from the original person.

    It's just like Dad to support Warhol.  He actually met with some members of Warhol's studio when he was just a child.  I don't think he met the artist himself.  I would remember that.  Besides, Warhol was too famous to have met with him when my Dad was that young, even if the Burton family had the money and clout to pull it off.

    I scan down to where Dad mentions Lichtenstein. The editorial really ripped into his works. Apparently, that writer hates comic books.