Bull V 1973

Roy Lichtenstein made this ‘Bull V’ and it looks like he used printmaking techniques to produce bold, graphic forms in primary colors. It’s curious that Lichtenstein has taken the bull as his subject. There is something so basic about that form, but in his hands, it’s like he's dissecting the very idea of ‘bullness’. The black lines are so crisp and insistent, they almost vibrate against the stark white. It's fascinating how he breaks the bull down into these geometric shapes. I wonder if he was thinking about how we construct images in our minds or how advertising reduces things to their simplest, most impactful form. It reminds me of Picasso’s bull lithographs, how he too abstracted the animal form, each artist building on what the other has made. The whole history of art is like this massive, ongoing conversation between artists. It's really interesting to think about painting as a way of making sense of the world, or, more specifically, a bull.