"Where they (it was held) re-made the world visually and emotionally in the smithies of their tortured souls (to paraphrase James Joyce), Warhol blithely swiped subject matter from mass media."
— Sartwell, Crispin (b. 1958)
Author
Work Title
Date
June 19, 2013
Metaphor
"Where they (it was held) re-made the world visually and emotionally in the smithies of their tortured souls (to paraphrase James Joyce), Warhol blithely swiped subject matter from mass media."
Metaphor in Context
As the ur-postmodernist, Warhol's entire artistic practice and persona stood, quite intentionally, in opposition to modernist ideas. He was the very antithesis of a Van Gogh, a Picasso, a Pollock. Where they (it was held) re-made the world visually and emotionally in the smithies of their tortured souls (to paraphrase James Joyce), Warhol blithely swiped subject matter from mass media. He presented himself as a kind of empty mirror for the images that were already all around us in advertising or entertainment or packaging. And his persona was famously cool and withdrawn, or even blank: just the opposite of the outsized, impassioned personalities of Picasso or Pollock.
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Crispin Sartwell, "Andy Warhol and the Persistence of Modernism" The New York Times, Opinionator: The Stone (June 19, 2013) <Link to NYTimes.com>
Date of Entry
06/21/2013
