Climbing Down of the Ivory Tower

“The first modern usage of "ivory tower" in the familiar sense of an unworldly dreamer can be found in a poem of 1837, "Pensées d’Août, à M. Villemain", by Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, a French literary critic and author, who used the term "tour d'ivoire" to describe the poetical attitude of Alfred de Vigny as contrasted with the more socially engaged Victor Hugo: "Et Vigny, plus secret, Comme en sa tour d’ivoire, avant midi rentrait"”(And Vigny, more secret, as in his ivory tower, before noon returned)

In other words, it is the detachment between the artists and the rest of the people, meaning that not all of the people will understand their work. Only the artist and/or the more educated people will understand it.

A good example of it is the Beat Generation’s art which was just for the beats. It was and it still is great but it is for a restrict group of people. Almost of all the art made before the 20^th Century is a good example, too, because it was just for the ones who were educated.

However, in the fifties a new type of art as appeared: The Pop Art! The Pop art was a movement marked by a fascination with popular culture and the everyday objects. A good definition of Pop Art is:

"The term first appeared in Britain during the 1950s and referred to the interest of a number of artists in the images of mass media, advertising, comics and consumer products. The 1950s were a period of optimism in Britain following the end of war-time rationing, and a consumer boom took place. Influenced by the art seen in Eduardo Paolozzi's 1953 exhibition Parallel between Art and Life at the Institute for Contemporary Arts, and by American artists such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, British artists such as Richard Hamilton and the Independent Group aimed at broadening taste into more popular, less academic art. Hamilton helped organize the 'Man, Machine, and Motion' exhibition in 1955, and 'This is Tomorrow' with its landmark image Just What is it that makes today's home so different, so appealing? (1956). Pop Art therefore coincided with the youth and pop music phenomenon of the 1950s and '60s, and became very much a part of the image of fashionable, 'swinging' London. Peter Blake, for example, designed album covers for Elvis Presley and the Beatles and placed film stars such as Brigitte Bardot in his pictures in the same way that Warhol was immortalizing Marilyn Monroe in the USA. Pop art came in a number of waves, but all its adherents - Joe Trilson, Richard Smith, Peter Phillips, David Hockney and R.B. Kitaj - shared some interest in the urban, consumer, modern experience."

- From The Bulfinch Guide to Art History

A huge (but complete) definition to describe this movement that Claes Oldenburg, an American pop art artist, describes a little more briefly and hearty in this way: "I am for an art that takes its forms from the lines of life itself, that twists and extends and accumulates and spits and drips and is heavy and coarse and blunt and sweet and stupid as life itself."
Claes Oldenburg (1929- ), in an exhibition catalogue, 1961.

As you can see these pop art examples from Clae Oldenburg are from everyday life and it is accessible for everyone understanding.

Let’s see some curiosities:

The most well-known artist from this movement is Andy Whorl, an eccentric man, who brought Pop Art to the public eye. Let’s see some examples of his works and a representation of his person in The Doors (the film).

Go to this link to see the excerpt of The Doors http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FofUV4paQQ

An example of contemporary Pop Art is in the film American Beauty but this is only a personal opinion:

So, do you agree with me?!

References:

Wikipedia®, The Ivory Tower, This page was last modified on 25 March 2012 at 16:25, last view on 5^th of May 2012, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory_Tower

Site Credits, Pop Art, 2010, last view on 5^th of May 2012, http://www.artchive.com/artchive/pop_art.html

Artlex, The art dictionary, Pop Art, 2010, last view on 5^th of May 2012, http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/p/popart.html