 |
SUBJECT AREA LEGEND    
|
ON THIS PAGE: |
DOWNLOADS: |
LESSONS BASED ON "James Rosenquist: |
James Rosenquists: A Retrospective
Collage and Scaling-up
“Collage is still a very contemporary medium, whether it is done with little bits of paper or in the cinema.”
–James Rosenquist
Rosenquist’s early training as a sign painter is reflected in both his painting technique and planning process. He employs the traditional methods of the billboard painter, drawing freehand and painting with brushes. There are no projected images, no photo-transfers, and no Photoshop software. When he applies paint to the canvas he strives for a smooth seamless surface that shows no sign of the artist’s brushstrokes. This application both links him with commercial advertising and gives his canvases a sense of anonymity.
Rosenquist’s experience as a billboard painter provided him with a unique view of figurative imagery. Viewed up close, the giant images become abstract and mysterious, dissolving into areas of pure color, texture, and shape. Throughout his career, Rosenquist has thought of himself as an abstract painter.
In preparation for beginning a new work, Rosenquist creates source collages by juxtaposing small cutout magazine advertisements or photographs. These source collages, once regarded only as planning tools, are now considered works of art in their own right. The collages, like sketches from an artist’s notebook, offer a glimpse at the thought process behind the finished paintings. Grid lines are superimposed on the collage so that areas can be proportionally enlarged on the canvas. Through this scaling-up process, Rosenquist is able to translate the small source collage into paintings of sometimes-enormous proportions.
The painting President Elect (1960–61/1964) includes a portrait of John F. Kennedy borrowed from a 1960 presidential campaign poster. Rosenquist juxtaposed this portrait with images of middle-class wealth and consumerism—advertisements from Life magazine—in order to say, “Here is this new guy who wants to be President of the United States… what is he offering us?” Kennedy was the first presidential candidate to fully utilize the mass media in his campaign, and the painting is about “a man advertising himself.”
| View + Discuss |
James Rosenquist (b. 1933)
|
|
James Rosenquist (b. 1933) |
|
| Art Explorations | |
|
Rosenquist uses a technique known as “scaling-up” to enlarge the images from his collages into enormous paintings. To experiment with this technique you will need:
Select a black-and-white magazine photograph that appeals to you. You can try color as you gain more experience. Use the 3 x 4 inch frame to select a portion of the photo. Look for an interesting composition and contrasts in darks and lights. Trace around and cut out the selected area and mount it on a piece of poster board. With a ruler and a fine-point marker, draw a 1/2-inch grid on top of your cropping. Label your grid like a graph with numbers going down one side and letters going across. With a ruler and hard pencil (2H) draw a very light 1 1/2-inch grid on your drawing paper. Outside the margin of your drawing, very lightly label your grid like a graph with numbers and letters just like the cropping. Now begin to transpose what you see in the gridded photograph onto the larger drawing paper. Allow the superimposed grid lines to help you focus more clearly. This process is time consuming and takes lots of careful work and observation, but it can help you to enlarge an image quite convincingly. |
|
Create your own source collage from magazine clippings. When you have a composition that appeals to you, enlarge your collage into drawing or painting by scaling up. |
|
Although Rosenquist does not use a computer to generate his compositions, digital technology presents another tool that students can use to experiment with combining images and creating interesting effects. Begin by having students conduct a Google image search for source material to create a digital collage. Photographs from magazines can also be scanned and saved. Using a simple imaging program like Powerpoint or a more advanced program such as Photoshop, help students import the files, using the simple commands for cutting and pasting. |
Additional Resources |
Kaupelis, Robert. Experimental Drawing. New York:
Watson-Guptill Publications, 1980. Includes a chapter on approaches
to drawing that use photographs, cropped images, and grids. |
Vocabulary |
ABSTRACT Not related to material objects. ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM A movement in American painting that developed in New York during the 1940s and stressed the spontaneous expression of emotion without reference to any representation of physical reality. BEATS Beginning in the 1950s, artists, poets, and musicians who defied social norms by adopting a bohemian lifestyle and rejecting traditional American values and material possessions. COLLAGE Two-dimensional works made of pasted paper pieces, cloth, or other materials. CUBIST Referring to a style of art originated by George Braque and Pablo Picasso. The Cubists fragmented objects and pictorial space into semitransparent, overlapping faceted planes. GRID A network of evenly spaced horizontal and vertical lines, as found on graph paper. GRISAILLE A style of painting that uses only gray tints to render images. ICONOGRAPHY Symbols and images that have a particular meaning, either learned or universal. The visual imagery used to convey meaning in a work of art. MEDIA MESSAGES Communication that reaches us through information and entertainment technologies that may use a combination of words, images, and sounds to capture our attention. METAPHOR A figure of speech or visual presentation in which a word, phrase, or image is used in place of another to suggest a likeness between them, while in the process formulating a new concept for the imagination. POP ART An art movement with its roots in the 1950s that explored the image world of popular culture, from which its name derives. Basing their techniques, style, and imagery on certain aspects of mass reproduction, the media, and consumer society, these artists took inspiration from advertising, pulp magazines, billboards, movies, television, comic strips, and shop windows. These images, presented with (and sometimes transformed by) humor, wit, and irony, can be seen as both a celebration and a critique of popular culture. POPULAR CULTURE The common set of arts, entertainment, customs, beliefs, and values shared by large segments of society. SCALING-UP A technique traditionally used in commercial art to enlarge an image by using a proportional grid. SURREALISM A 20th-century art movement in art and literature that sought to express what is in the subconscious mind by depicting objects and events as seen in dreams. |