Bedroom 1990

Roy Lichtenstein made this ‘Bedroom’ sometime in his career, probably with paint and a stencil. Lichtenstein used these graphic lines, flat planes, and Ben-Day dots, a technique lifted from comic books, that have become his signature. It's like he's saying, "Hey, art can be everywhere, even in the funny pages!" Look at how he flattens everything out. There’s an almost aggressive simplification. The furniture seems like a stage set, more idea than object. The rug, the curtains, the weird little painting on the wall—all reduced to these bold graphic symbols. That rug, with its blue stripes and yellow squiggles, is so, so wrong, but somehow it all balances. It reminds me a little bit of what Matisse was doing, but instead of lush colors and free-flowing lines, Lichtenstein gives us something harder, more ironic. It makes you think about how we see, what we consider to be real, and how art can mess with all of that. Isn't it cool?