Brushstroke 1965

Roy Lichtenstein made this painting, Brushstroke, with oil and magna on canvas, and what strikes me is how he's taken the most physical, gestural mark—the brushstroke—and turned it into something slick and mass-produced. I can imagine him thinking about Abstract Expressionists like de Kooning and Kline, and how their paintings were all about spontaneity and raw emotion, and he's like, "Okay, let's take that, but make it flat, graphic, and totally un-expressive." The black outline is so clean, and the Ben-Day dots in the background give it this comic book feel, like it's been blown up from a tiny panel. It’s as though a painting has gone through a printing press! And that brushstroke itself, frozen in time, is such a funny commentary on the whole idea of originality and authenticity in art. Artists are magpies; they steal and borrow and transform, playing with ideas across generations, so it’s fun to think about what they're saying to each other.