Whaam! — BrandWiki

Whaam!

Whaam! is a 1963 diptych painting by the American artist Roy Lichtenstein. It is one of the best-known works of pop art, and among Lichtenstein's most important paintings.[1] Whaam! was first exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City in 1963, and purchased by the Tate Gallery, London, in 1966. It has been on permanent display at Tate Modern since 2006.

The left-hand panel shows a fighter plane firing a rocket that, in the right-hand panel, hits a second plane which explodes in flames. Lichtenstein adapted the image from several comic-book panels, with the primary source being a panel illustrated by Irv Novick from a 1962 war comic book. Lichtenstein transformed the source by presenting it as a diptych while altering the relationship of the graphical and narrative elements. Whaam! is regarded for the temporal, spatial and psychological integration of its two panels. The painting's title is integral to the action and impact of the painting, and displayed in large onomatopoeia in the right panel.

Lichtenstein studied as an artist before and after serving in the United States Army during World War II. He practiced anti-aircraft drills during basic training, and he was sent for pilot training but the program was canceled before it started. Among the topics he tackled after the war were romance and war. He depicted aerial combat in several works. Whaam! is part of a series on war that he worked on between 1962 and 1964, and along with

Description

Whaam! depicts a fighter aircraft in the left panel firing a rocket into an enemy plane in the right panel, which disintegrates in a vivid red-and-yellow explosion. The cartoon style is emphasized by the use of the onomatopoeic lettering "WHAAM!" in the right panel, and a yellow-boxed caption with black lettering at the top of the left panel. The textual exclamation "WHAAM!" can be considered the graphic equivalent of a sound effect. This was to become a characteristic of his work—like others of his onomatopoeic paintings that contain exclamations such as Bratatat! and Varoom![40]

Whaam! is one of Lichtenstein's series of war images, typically combining vibrant colors with an expressive narrative. Whaam! is very large, measuring 1.7 m × 4.0 m (5 ft 7 in × 13 ft 4 in).[22] It is less abstract than As I Opened Fire, another of his war scenes. Lichtenstein employs his usual comic-book style: stereotyped imagery in bright primary colors with black outlines, coupled with imitations of mechanical printer's Ben-Day dots.[41] The use of these dots, which were invented by Benjamin Day to simulate color variations and shading, are considered Lichtenstein's "signature method". Whaam! departs from Lichtenstein's earlier diptychs such as Step-on-Can with Leg and Like New, in that the panels are not two variations of the same image.

Although Lichtenstein strove to remain faithful to the source images, he constructed his paintings in a traditional manner, starting with a sketch which he adjusted to improve the composition and then projected on to a canvas to make the finished painting. In the case of Whaam!, the sketch is on two pieces of paper, and the finished work is painted with Magna acrylic and oil paint on canvas.[42] Although the transformation from a single-panel conception into a diptych painting occurred during the initial sketch, the final work varies from the sketch in several ways. The sketch suggests that the "WHAAM!" motif would be colored white, although it is yellow in the finished work.[36][37] Lichtenstein enlarged the main graphical subject of each panel (the plane on the left and the flames on the right), bringing them closer together as a result.[37]

Lichtenstein built up the image with multiple layers of paint. The paint was applied using a scrub brush and handmade metal screen to produce Ben-Day dots via a process that left physical evidence behind.[43][44] The Ben-Day dots technique enabled Lichtenstein to give his works a mechanically reproduced feel. Lichtenstein said that the work is "supposed to look like a fake, and it achieves that, I think".[45]

Lichtenstein split the composition into two panels to separate the action from its consequence. The left panel features the attacking plane—placed at a diagonal to create a sense of depth—below the text balloon, which Lichtenstein has relegated to the margin above the plane. In the right panel, the exploding plane—depicted head-on—is outlined by the flames, accompanied by the bold exclamation "WHAAM!". Although separate, with one panel containing the missile launch and the other its explosion, representing two distinct events,[46] the two panels are clearly linked spatially and temporally, not least by the horizontal smoke trail of the missile. Lichtenstein commented on this piece in a 10 July 1967, letter: "I remember being concerned with the idea of doing two almost separate paintings having little hint of compositional connection, and each having slightly separate stylistic character. Of course there is the humorous connection of one panel shooting the other."

Lichtenstein altered the composition to make the image more compelling, by making the exploding plane more prominent compared to the attacking plane than in the original. The smoke trail of the missile becomes a horizontal line. The flames of the explosion dominate the right panel, but the pilot and the airplane in the left panel are the narrative focus. They exemplify Lichtenstein's painstaking detailing of physical features such as the aircraft's cockpit. The other element of the narrative content is a text balloon that contains the following text: "I pressed the fire control ... and ahead of me rockets blazed through the sky ..."[43] This is among the text believed to have been written by All-American Men of War editor Robert Kanigher.[47][48] The yellow word "WHAAM!", altered from the red in the original comic-book panel and white in the pencil sketch, links the yellow of the explosion below it with the textbox to the left and the flames of the missile below the attacking plane.

Lichtenstein's borrowings from comics mimicked their style while adapting their subject matter. He explained that "Signs and comic strips are interesting as subject matter. There are certain things that are usable, forceful and vital about commercial art." Rebecca Bengal at PBS wrote that Whaam! graphic clarity exemplifies the ligne claire style associated with Hergé, a cartoonist whose influence Lichtenstein acknowledged.[49] Lichtenstein was attracted to using a cool, formal style to depict emotive subjects, leaving the viewer to interpret the artist's intention.[50] He adopted a simplified color scheme and commercial printing-like techniques. The borrowed technique was "representing tonal variations with patterns of colored circles that imitated the half-tone screens of Ben Day dots used in newspaper printing, and surrounding these with black outlines similar to those used to conceal imperfections in cheap newsprint."[51] Lichtenstein once said of his technique: "I take a cliche and try to organize its forms to make it monumental."[43]

Reception

The painting was, for the most part, well received by art critics when first exhibited. A November 1963 Art Magazine review by Donald Judd described Whaam! as one of the "broad and powerful paintings" of the 1963 exhibition at Castelli's Gallery. In his review of the exhibition, The New York Times art critic Brian O'Doherty described Lichtenstein's technique as "typewriter pointillism ... that laboriously hammers out such moments as a jet shooting down another jet with a big BLAM". According to O'Doherty, the result was "certainly not art, [but] time may make it so", depending on whether it could be "rationalized ... and placed in line for the future to assimilate as history, which it shows every sign of doing."[52] The Tate Gallery in London acquired the work in 1966, leading to heated argument amongst their trustees and some vocal members of the public. The purchase was made from art dealer Ileana Sonnabend, whose asking price of £4,665 (£0 in currency) was reduced by negotiation to £3,940 (£0 in currency). Some Tate trustees opposed the acquisition, among them sculptor Barbara Hepworth, painter Andrew Forge and the poet and critic Herbert Read. Defending the acquisition, art historian Richard Morphet, then an assistant keeper at the Tate, suggested that the painting addresses several issues and painterly styles at the same time: "history painting, Baroque extravagance, and the quotidian phenomenon of mass-circulation comic strips."[53] The Times in 1967 described the acquisition as a "very large and spectacular painting".[54] The Tate's director, Norman Reid, later said that the work aroused more public interest than any of its acquisitions since World War II.[55]

In 1968, Whaam! was included in the Tate's first solo exhibition of Lichtenstein's work.[55] The showing attracted 52,000 visitors, and was organized with the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam,[56] which later hosted the exhibition from 4 November to 17 December 1967, before it traveled to three other museums.[33]