What interests me is to paint the kind of antisensitivity that impregnates modern civilization. I think art since Cezanne has become extremely romantic and unrealistic, feeding on art. It is Utopian. It has less and less to do with the world. It looks inward - neo-Zen and all that. Pop Art looks out into the world. It doesn't look like a painting of something, it looks like the thing itself.
Roy LichtensteinUsually I begin things through a drawing, so a lot of things are worked out in the drawing. But even then, I still allow for and want to make changes. I kind of do the drawing with the painting in mind, but it's very hard to guess at a size or a color and the colors around it and what it will really look like. It's only a guess at the beginning, and then I try to refine it.
Roy LichtensteinWe like to think of industrialization as being despicable. I don't really know what to make of it. Thereโs something terribly brittle about it. I suppose I would still prefer to sit under a tree with a picnic basket rather than under a gas pump, but signs and comic strips are interesting as subject matter. There are certain things that are usable, forceful, and vital about commercial art. We're using those things โ but we're not really advocating stupidity, international teenagerism, and terrorism.
Roy LichtensteinI suppose I would still prefer to sit under a tree with a picnic basket rather than under a gas pump, but signs and comic strips are interesting as subject matter.
Roy LichtensteinEverybody knows that abstract art can be art, and most people know that they may not like it, even if they understand there's another purpose to it.
Roy Lichtenstein