by Jesse Hunt

Created on: June 19, 2008

As we switch on the TV we are inundated by commercials, and TV shows broadcasting celebrity life down to the minute. Brittany Spears is a closer friend, than our neighbors next door. We love to know who is hot and who is not. Andy Warhol captured that same spirit before it was cool. He commercialized what was in essence popular at that time hence the name Pop Art. He looked around in his world and said hey I like Coca Cola why not paint it, if I like it others would to. He captured the popularity of Marilyn Monroe in art, very logical that many others would find her beautiful, and want her to hang on their walls. For that logic alone he is genius as a money making artist. Some people forget artists are trying to make money, besides their love for the creative control they have over their lives.

One concept I picked up in Art History classes in college was that an artist must make new advances in the art world in order to make money and personal fame. This was Andy Warhol who ventured out from the norm at that time. In return we have a man who sells paintings for large sums of money long after his death. Andy still reaches the common man today because the vast availability of his prints.

Sure you may say. "He's overrated, hey I could make that myself." It may be true that you could make it but respect to the man that said I made a new discovery is really what he deserves as an artist. Andy Warhol turned his passion into his work, that alone is genius and many can not say that of their own lives. Andy also did what he knew. He started out as a boy interested in art, and turned experiment after experiment into a final hand painted product, then he eventually discovered the powerful tool of silk screening. This tool turned his commercialized and popular images into it own form of pop culture.

Andy Warhol deserves respect as an artist because he made discoveries, he found what worked for him, and at the same time found a way to satisfy his fans through out the world, and still does today. He gives hope to other artist to make discoveries to do that which may be out of the norm, and to discover new techniques. He teaches the lesson that when you find what works you need to maximize its benefits. That is the same attitude we still get from millions of commercials, we must act now, maximize your personal benefit. Thus Andy lives on and advertising has taken the tip from him.

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