The Research Of The Theme Of Violence And Its Aesthetic Characteristics In Andy Warhol’s "Death And Disaster" Series

Throughout the development of society,violence has taken different forms in each different stage to accompany the times.And in the development of art history,violence as a constant theme of art creation,from the classical period to the modernist period,many artists’ works have more or less appeared the element of violence,from "La Rocon" on Rhode Island to Goya’s "The Shooting of the Insurrectionists on May 3,1808" to Beuys’ "How to Explain a Painting to a Dead Rabbit" Different artists have different Different artists have different concerns about violence,and at the same time have different ways of expressing it.Andy Warhol,as one of the representatives of Pop Art in the 20 th century,had a keen sense of popular culture,mass media and other related elements,and created several series of works: "Marilyn Monroe","One Hundred Cans of Campbell’s Soup","One Hundred Coca-Cola Bottles"......These are also the most well-known series of several public works,China and abroad also made a lot of research on these series of works.In addition to these works,he has the same concern for violence,and his series of "Death and Disaster" created between 1962 and 1964 is the concentrated expression of his concern for violence.This series of works,in my opinion,is an important turning point in his own creative lineage and has certain research significance.This essay focuses on the content and form of Andy Warhol’s works in the series,and finally discusses his own exploration in painting in the context of his daily creative practice,and elaborates on his thoughts on violence in terms of the specific violence he focuses on and the way he transforms his painting language.Firstly,we will clarify the background and reasons for Andy Warhol’s creation of the Death and Disaster series,analyzing why the artist shifted from the symbols of popular culture to the violent elements in society from the perspective of social change and turmoil and the artist’s own experience.Secondly,we analyze what forms of violence are involved in the content of "Death and Disaster" from the perspective of the image content of the works.Visual violence is represented by the scene of violence,while symbolic violence is represented by the objects and portraits related to violent events.Third,the violence presented formally in the series is analyzed in the context of the analysis of the face of the specific works,in terms of the formal logic in the transformation of the image content of the works.I divide the argument into four aspects: the first aspect is the basic pictorial language of the works,which visually reflects the visual violence through the weakening of colors,the strong black and white contrast,the huge picture size,and the use of pictorial media.The second aspect,the use of images in the works,is Andy Warhol’s direct appropriation of violent images,which reverses the conventional narrative of violence in the art historical lineage of immersion and abstraction,and overturns the original artistic perception of the use of violent images.The third aspect is the way of viewing shaped by the work.By repeating and superimposing the images,it breaks the original viewing habits of the whole picture and forces the viewer to enter into the details of each reproduced image,forming a compulsory way of viewing.The fourth aspect is the media communication angle of the work,in which the mass production of images of death and disaster dramatically increases the exposure of these images,in a way that alludes to his concern about the harm caused by the mass media’s overwhelming coverage of violence: the increase in exposure instead weakens the public’s empathy in the face of such serious issues.Finally,we will discuss our own judgment and choice of this theme in our paintings,taking into account our own thinking about violence in our creation and our approach to the picture and image,from the works of the two stages and the transition between them.