Artists of the 1940s and early 1950s used painting and sculpture to understand their own personal states of being. By comparison, the Pop Artists responded to the intense visual stimulation that the growing consumer culture created.

　　Robert Rauschenberg was one of the first Pop Artists. He wanted to move art away from the personalities of the individual artists and direct it towards the world. The intuitive swirling forms of a Pollock painting said nothing to Rauschenberg about the rapidly changing world that he was experiencing.

　　By the late 1950s, Robert Rauschenberg was using everyday objects, which he found on the street, as the material for his art. Imagine taking a long walk around New York and picking up stuff, like old magazines, tires, and crumbled cigarette boxes. What would happen if you tried to make art from this material? This is what Rauschenberg did. He wanted to have his art reflect the world he lived in.

　　Rauschenberg didn’t try to impose a unified symbolic meaning on this collection of material. Instead he wanted the work to reflect the randomness of the things you might see if you were to walk around a densely populated area.

　　By the early 1960s Robert Rauschenberg was concentrating less on the objects and more on the images he found. He was fascinated by how a single photograph could be distributed through a magazine or newspaper across the country virtually immediately. He thought that these printed photographs could comment on the speed at which information was being given to people living in the TV age.

　　Rauschenberg’s use of found objects and images from everyday life was innovative and it set the stage for further development in Pop Art.

　　Pop Artistes were interested in visual communication because they believed that these images reflected the cultural values of contemporary society.

　　Question No. 16.

　　In which of the following periods did Pop Art start?

　　Question No. 17.

　　By which of the following were Pop artists inspired?

　　Question No. 18.

　　Which of the following statements is TRUE about Abstract Expressionism?

　　Question No. 19.

　　What was the goal of the Pop artist, Robert Rauschenberg?

　　Question No. 20.

　　Why were Pop artists interested in visual communication?