Gullscape 1964

Roy Lichtenstein, who was born in 1923 and died in 1997, made this 'Gullscape' painting, now at the Virginia Museum, using his signature Pop art style. What I love about Roy is how he takes something as expansive and romantic as a seascape and distills it into these bold, graphic elements. I can imagine him, brush in hand, thinking about the printing process, the dots, the lines. Lichtenstein wasn't trying to mimic reality; he was interested in how images are reproduced and perceived. There is a really interesting conversation happening in the work with artists like Hokusai. How can we capture the essence of water, of sky, with such simplicity and economy? In that sense, painting is this ongoing dialogue across time, each artist riffing off the others, finding new ways to see and express the world around them.