Dimensions: image: 500 x 963 mm
Copyright: © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/DACS 2014 | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Editor: This is Roy Lichtenstein's "Entablature VII" from the Tate Collection. It's composed of horizontal bands of repeating motifs. The starkness is interesting. What do you make of it? Curator: Lichtenstein often played with historical imagery. Here, the classical entablature, a symbol of authority and permanence, is rendered in a Pop Art style, challenging the cultural weight of these forms. Editor: So, it's about re-interpreting familiar imagery? Curator: Precisely. The Ben-Day dots, the stylized Greek key pattern - they’re not just decoration, they’re commentary. Lichtenstein is asking us to reconsider how we inherit and re-present history. Does that change how you view it? Editor: Definitely. I see it more as a question now, not a statement. Curator: And that's the power of visual symbols - their meanings are never fixed, always evolving.
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http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lichtenstein-entablature-vii-p78377
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Entablatures, the title of this series of prints, is an architectural term, referring to the decorative mouldings placed above the columns of classical buildings. While the shapes of the mouldings are still recognisable, Lichtenstein simplifies and stylises them in such a way that they seem to parody the austere, abstract stripes of certain Minimalist paintings of the 1960s and 70s. The embossed surface of the prints highlights the oscillation between an illusion of three-dimensions and the flat picture plane. Gallery label, August 2004
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