Painters Painting and Letters To A Young Poet

Painters Painting was an interesting film that explained many different types of art and artists, how they got started in America, and the high's and lows of each.  However, the overview of pop art caught my attention right away.  I have always seen pop art throughout my life and appreciated it for its cartoon-y style, use of color, and just its uniqueness in general.  I am always attracted to pieces of art that are different from the rest.  One piece of pop art that I have always admired is Andy Worhol's "Campbell's Soup Cans."  The fact that something as banal as a can of soup can be turned into a fun and interesting piece of art really excites me.  I would have never thought such a simple object could create such a beautiful piece of work.  I think the fact that it's duplicated so many times makes it that much more interesting- something I would have never thought could be cool.  I guess my attraction to pop art has to do with its eclectic style and its fearless attitude towards the traditional art world.  Many pieces of pop art are made of collages, a type of art that has always appealed to me.  One of my favorite pieces is by Richard Hamilton titled "Just what is it that makes today's homes so different so appealing?"  In this piece I can see a twist between old fashioned and modern- the paintings on the wall and the man and woman sitting in the picture seem to be old fashioned, but the bright orange sofa, shag rug, and lollipop give it a modern twist.  Maybe old fashioned and modern aren't the words I'm looking for, but I guess what I like is that those items give the piece a pop, it shows pizazz.

At first the book was a little hard to understand, I didn't get who was writing to who, and it took me a while to figure out that it was just Rilke writing the response letters, we never saw the letters from the "young poet."  However once i got the hang of it and understood what was going on I found this book to be really interesting.  I like how that even though all of this advice was directed towards a poet, it could be used for an artist as well.  It reminded me that all art comes together in some way.  The biggest points I took from the letters were to always be confident with your work, and let yourself be the hardest critic.  Never let anyone else judge your work otherwise.  And he stressed how important it is to be able to take risk with your art and never be afraid to just let go and go for it.  Even though these were directed towards the young poet, I took it as good advice for myself too.