ABSTRACT
Pop art and American art offer an apparently objective rendering of contemporary American artistic trends, described solely in terms of stylistic innovations, without reference to their political, social, or cultural background. Pop art conveys the assault of the visual, the aggression of multicolored advertising, of neon tubes, of illustrated magazines, and of giant billboards along motorways. In Pop art, as Amaya observed, “direct experience and primary emotion are eschewed for the manufactured, gift-wrapped feeling, shiny and new and guaranteed not to tarnish.” The sociology of culture had long observed that the assault of the visual (characteristic above all for America) takes place in roundabout ways, in fact. Imitations of natural forms invade the American home: plastic napkins decorated with lace patterns, nylon flowers, or sponge-like fruit made of “a material that manages to fool even the bees,” promises the advert.
