Girl with Ball 1961

Roy Lichtenstein painted this picture of a Girl with Ball, and it’s classic Lichtenstein – those bold outlines, the flat colours, and those Ben-Day dots mimicking the look of printed comics. I think he starts with a comic book image, or a newspaper ad, and abstracts it into something almost monumental. Look at the way he simplifies the forms, turns the girl into a symbol, almost. I wonder, what was he thinking when he chose that particular image? Was he drawn to the pose, the way she's reaching up? Or the tension in her face? And those thick outlines—they're not just decorative; they define the shapes, flatten the image. He's playing with our perception, asking us to see the world in a new way. Lichtenstein's not just copying comics, you know; he's engaging in a dialogue, and he pushes boundaries and questions what art can be.