Life of an Interior Design Student: Andy Warhol vs. Verner Panton Subject and Style

The subject(s) of a piece of an artwork differs from the style of the piece in that subject represents the story that the painting is telling, the point that the artist is trying to convey. Subject matter can be anything, a human being, a flower, landscape, a previous artist’s work. To use subject matter in a painting, it does not even have to be on this plane of existence. It can be something that dwells in the artist’s imagination, or perhaps a dream.

Style is the way that the artist chooses to express what they are seeing, their interpretation. Style (as well as subject) can be determined by how the artist is feeling. This can be determined by how large or small the brush strokes are, different shapes, the type of colors they decided to use, or a certain medium. Subject can influence style and vise versa, depending on the artist life experiences, their viewpoints, imagination, creativity, what is going on in the world at the time, popular culture, influenced by other artist.

The 1960’s saw the Pop Art Movement. This period artist took their inspiration from mass media and popular culture which influence the style at the time. Andy Warhol (1928-1987) is an iconic artist from this period. One of the pieces that Warhol is most famous for is 32 Campbell’s Cans (1962). The subject Warhol’s artwork is the Campbell’s Can. The style in which he decided to paint it in is called Pop Art (late 1950’s-1960’s). Warhol wished to show how everyday items can be art.

Artist: Andy Warhol
Name of the Piece: 32 Campbell's Cans
Date Created: 1962
Medium used: Synthetic Polymer Paint
32 Canvases used. Each Canvas is 50.8x40.6 cm

During the 1960’s Pop Art movement the Danish were taking Interior Design by storm. A famous Danish furniture designer from that time was Verner Panton (1926-1998). He is most famous for his S stacking chair. The primary subject of this piece is the chair. The style in which it is done is Pop Art (1950’s-1960’s). Verner designed this piece because he wanted to create a chair that was molded out of one piece of plastic.Much of his work is still produced and sold today.I would say this chair is Verner Panton's abstract interpretation of what a chair should be.