Andy Warhol: Life like a Motion Picture Film

     Needless to say that Andy Warhol left a vivid trace in the world`s art and cinematography. As vivid as the colors he used for his paintings. Far from everybody who saw his paintings knows that those paintings belong to him.

     Our previous articles are full of stories about outstanding people. Andy Warhol is one of them and today you need to write an essay about this person. He was quite extraordinary and difficult to mix up with anyone else. Which is why seeing his work at least once will make it to where you will be able to recognize him wherever you go, whatever you do. 

     It is rather boring to talk about where he was born, studied, lived. Some brief information is necessary though. Three countries consider the artist to be belong to them, those are America, Slovakia and Ukraine. It will be accurate to say one thing that Warhol`s artistic legacy belong to not some country but to the whole world.  

     Real name AndrewWarhola was born in Pittsburg in the family of Carpatho-Russians. He mother Julia Warhola was 36 years old back then. Father of the future artist was working in a building company. Andy was the youngest child; there were two more sons in the family. At the age between 4 and 8 years old, endured a row of serious diseases, among which was the most serious one. Du to that, suffering from attacks mostly in summer, Andy had to spend the days in bed, playing with cut dolls and listening to the radio. His mother drew different pictures for him and this is how he got interested in drawing. Later, out of his own earning, Julia bought a little cinematograph projector for her son, by means of which he could watch stories in pictures right on the wall of his room.

     This is how Andy`s creativity began to develop from the early childhood. Since being a 9-year-old kid, Andy began attending free courses of artistry. After graduation, he entered Carnegie Institute of Technology to department of drawing and design. The student had a proactive approach to life - symphony orchestra, was interested in ballet. What the artist did was free, postmodern and unrestrained.

Emperor with no clothes, fashion and a film footage

     What is the secret of Warhol`s works? Why these simply at the first sight paintings are worldwide famous? What he has done is brave, epatage, catching up in the moment, contains stratification, underground, of three dimensions, created in the style of a film footage. There is a theory to draw something crazy, strange and you will become famous. It is a principle of an emperor with no clothes, when no one gets the point, the message of the piece. Due to lack of understanding, it is considered to be high, incredible, remarkable. It is illustrative of the Black Square by Malevich. It has nothing to do with what Warhol has created.

     Andy lived with fashion, pop-culture and cinema. At his youth, he created sketches of futuristic, very bright shoes with heels. Those were a designer`s ideas. Bent lines were the final flourish, which made it to where connoisseurs recognized Warhol`s style. He had passion for fashion. The artist through the fashion glasses perceived probably even the reality. He was gay and did not hide the fact which is why it was even easier to be great on fashion trends. It was embedded in his chromosomes, in his soul.

     Cinematic art was also an important part of his nature. A film footage became a device to get the world, understanding of reality. Andy kept his eye on the ball of life. His painting speak out about it: Electric chair, Jim Crow outrageous, Campbell’s tomato soup and many more, which reflected the burning reality. He showed events in photos of unusual colors, with the lines being erased. Not the way everyone saw it. It is as if the artist fixes our attention, makes to think over everyday life, and tries to understand them in a different way. And, perhaps, to blanche. Electric chair, Jim Crow outrageous, semi finished products – all those things were features of the American society that was. In addition, simple people did not pay attention to it, all they could think of is their life, problems of their own. Andy reached out to a heart of everyone and it was not hard to get his message. He was creating mass and elite art at the same time.

Honest and “painted” pop stars

     Pop stars portraits are the most popular Warhol`s paintings performed in his usual technique of painting aa photo. Images of Marylyn Monroe and Elvis Presley are the best well known. It is as if the artist looks inside people`s souls, he draws. If to look closer, one is able to see all the tragedy of Marylyn Monroe`s persona. Brightly painted, with pink face, she look unhappy. The truth is hidden in her eyes. They look from above the eyelashes kind of lost and confused. Perhaps, Marylyn did not find the meaning of life. And this powder, too much of painting on her face, is only a mask behind which the true nature of the star is hidden no one did not even want to see. Same thing with Elvis Presley`s image. It was accomplished in more gloomy tones, in grey. Very often, the image is half erased. The singer pointed a gun onto the spectators, his face is deformed. Perhaps, Elvis wants to defend.

15 shots of “alive” portrait

     No wonder that with such a perception of the world, the artist was creating a movie just as well. And this movie amazed the world! For example, portraits of people. For three minutes, Andy was shooting a motionless person, and then he made cuts so there were 15 shots per second. The picture was slow motion, some sort of unreal. Thus, a man is easy to understand, those were “alive” portraits. Or a monotonous 8-hour lasting shot. Everything was there: color, the clouds movement, space, even a plane to pass by. The camera did not move though. We were simply observing the pieces of the world, how the morning starts here, and the day goes on, and the twilight falling brown. Those were charms of reality. Far from everybody managed to get the movie, it is a pure art-house. Now Andy is compared to impressionists. When Claude Monet was playing with colors as well, painting façade of Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Rouen. He painted in different time of the day and every time the painting turned out to be different.

     Andy Warhol is not just an artist, he is an art himself. He was not afraid of experiments, crazy ideas, was not afraid to show himself to the world. He was not just an embodiment of postmodernism; he did a lot for development of this direction. Let somebody say that his activity is abnormal, amoral, not interesting. However, the one who is not afraid to break stereotypes lay a new foundation of art, normally remains in the memory of the generations. Standard, conventional, correct is not art, it is just a substitute, which was imposed us by socialist realism. Human potential has no boundaries, as long as everyone draws inspiration from immense depths of space with which they are combined. Hive mind is inside every one of us, but far from everyone is able to hear this voice to the full extent.             

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