Bedroom at Arles 1992

Roy Lichtenstein made this painting, ‘Bedroom at Arles’, as a kind of comic book fantasia, a wink at Van Gogh’s famous painting of his bedroom. I like to think about what it might have been like for Lichtenstein, riffing off Van Gogh, re-imagining a classic through his own Pop Art filter. The flat planes of color, outlined in bold black, give the image a graphic punch, while the Ben-Day dots in the blue areas create a kind of visual buzz. I'm sure the decision to use them was intentional, mimicking the look of mass-produced comic strips. The painting’s surface is smooth and hard, which contrasts with Van Gogh’s thick impasto. This says so much about how painting styles change over time. Lichtenstein, like all artists, was in dialogue with the past, translating it into his own language. I like how Lichtenstein's version is less about personal angst and more about a playful take on art history. It’s as if he’s saying, “Hey, even a bedroom can be a pop art spectacle!”