Rauschenberg, Robert Reservoir
Robert Rauschenberg was an American artist born in 1925. His work was popular in the 1950s when he made the transition to Pop Art. He is known for combining non-traditional materials and objects to make innovative combinations
The Pop Art movement draws from sources in popular and commercial culture, such as movies, advertising, packaging, pop music and comic books, to form the perspective of fine art. Often using objects to represent the subject then engage with an combine to produce contemplations. but the subject itself isn't about the techniques it is about the attitude of challenging tradition. It is one of the first examples of postmodernism. Often the artists used low subject matter and treated it uncritically. New modern topic matters or themes were explored.
In the painting, Reservoir (pictured above),Rauschenberg has used common placed objects over a splattered background. The main objects are the two clocks placed near the top and the bottom left corners. They read two different hours which suggests movement. The higher shows the time Rauschenberg started the painting, and bottom when it was completed. If you conclude that the time did not run over a period of days it can be assumed that it took only an hour and five minutes. Time is a nice niggle for art critics, who could suggest that great art must have labour hours invested into it to make it valuable. I feel that this is a small stand promoting post-modern art.
A number of materials have been used to form the image: oil, wood, graphite, fabric, metal, and rubber, as well as the additional rounded objects. Putting 'Fat over Lean' as it can be described produces new lustful textures and effects. When playing with materials you often get a unique desirable results that produce questions for the viewer. Rauschenberg using objects instead of paint works as a Pop art idealisim and fills the gap between art and life. It breaks away from traditional picture space as the objects extend away from the canvas.
The painting technique are erratic. Bold thick strokes have been used to rush around the painting. There are drip marks. No efforts have been made to integrate the bold colour patches. the edges of the colouring are jagged as each brush stroke finishes in a different place. All theses factors collate to an exciting energy of hast and add quality to the theme of movement.
The colour and main compositional additions are at the top of the page, bellow a dirty level white subsides, with the clock leveled upon a bold red splatter. The centre is covered in a textured brown and consists from objects and the paint. It flows to the left into a black with navy highlights the settle a base for the higher clock. Above this floats a purple and white mixture. All colours mentioned are clumped separately with whiter versions of the strongest hue pasted within. In the remaining top area above the mentioned arc is a more pastel collection including a blue and a peachy red clump. Primary colours with no secondary colours to assist an analogous ease. the top right edge trails into a weak soft brown created from the red cluster.
It is unclear what subject, objects or scene the artist was painting, or if there was indeed a objective at all, but as an onlooker I feel there is a collection because of the strong colour divides. The wood placed above the clock confirms this and gives the image structure as a beam would within a house. The arc of browns and black holds the foreground and the pastel colours rest as background.
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