Roy Lichtenstein

Answer choices

1. A

   Opposite: realistic15% picked this

   a painting that uses realistic techniques to represent several simple objects arranged

   Lichtenstein's paintings looked like cartoony comic book strips, not like realistic still life of a bowl of pears on a table.

   15%
2. B

   Bad Match: stick figures12% picked this

   a painting that parodies human figures by depicting them as

   We were never told that Lichtenstein was trying to do a parody of humans. The fact that his art looked like unsophisticated cartoons from comic book strips was meant to parody who pretentious and self-absorbed late abstract expressionism was. It seems unlikely that any of Lichtenstein's paintings would have had stick figures, since he was into colorful shapes and cartoony, comic-book images.

   12%
3. C

   Wrong Spirit: inner turmoil21% picked this

   a painting that conveys its creator’s inner turmoil through the use of bold lines

   If this painting conveyed inner sweetness / nostalgia / a deliberate naivete toward consumer culture, through the use of bold lines and primary colors, then it would be more in the spirit of Lichtenstein's work. We don't get any sense that Lichtenstein's paintings had a spirt of inner turmoil. It seems more like they were a bright splashy celebration of modern life, in all its cheesy, commodified splendor.

   21%
4. D

   Bad Match: vague shapes5% picked this

   a painting that employs vague shapes and images to make a statement

   Given that Lichtenstein's paintings look like comic book strips, with cars, hot dogs, table lamps, and other identifiable objects from pop culture, it would be weird for them to have "vague shapes and images". It sounds like he had pretty specific things clearly represented. Also, Lichtenstein wasn't trying to "make a statement about consumer culture", if we mean that in the typical connotation of "protest / make a stink / raise a fuss / be provocative". He liked consumer culture. He thought that contemporary painting should actually depict contemporary life. That's more the statement he wanted to make about contemporary painting, though, not a statement about consumer culture.

   5%
5. E

   Correct47% picked this

   a painting that depicts products as they appear in magazine advertisements to comment

   Why this is right

   Part of the spirit of his work is that "his work displayed an impulse toward realism, an urge to say that what was missing from contemporary painting was the depiction of contemporary life ... Lichtenstein's work exuded .. a kind of deliberate naivete about consumer culture." So realistic representations of consumer culture (i.e depicting products as they appear in magazine advertisements) sounds fairly up his alley. In fact, the first sentence of the passage says that the pop art movement he helped to define, "incorporated commonplace objects and commercial-art techniques into paintings". A product as depicted in a magazine = a commonplace object depicted using commercial-art techniques. The part of this answer about "to comment on society's value" does not match up well with any line in the passage. It is a frustrating aspect of this correct answer, but it doesn't conflict with any part of the passage. So since we have stuff we can match here and nothing that goes against what we've heard (the way that inner turmoil in C did), this ends up being the most supportable answer.

   Skill tested: Application · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

   47%