Modern Head #2 1970

Roy Lichtenstein's "Modern Head #2" is an exercise in reduction, a face distilled to its geometric essence using hard lines and bold colors. What's going on in his head? Probably thoughts of Picasso, Leger, and all those early modernists who were obsessed with stripping things down to their basic forms. I can imagine Lichtenstein, with his signature deadpan humor, riffing on their ideas, and the way he throws in those benday dots, his trademark, it’s like he’s saying, "Yeah, we can make art out of anything, even mass-produced comic strips!" But it’s not just a cynical move; there’s a real love for the graphic punch of those dots and lines. It makes you wonder what it’s like to think in such clean, bold shapes, and how it all comes together. It’s as if he’s trying to find the absolute minimum required to suggest a face, a person, a feeling.