Art Critique on The Marilyn Diptych by Andy Warhol
The Marilyn Diptych is a silkscreen painting portraying Marilyn Monroe, who was America’s most popular sex symbol in the 1950s and early 1960s. She later became a major popular culture icon around the world and is remembered notably for her red lips, wavy blond hair and seductive appearance. This piece of art was created in 1962 by America’s most iconic pop artist Andy Warhol, and was completed in the weeks following Monroe’s mysterious death to commemorate her. Today, it is being kept at the Tate in London and was named “the third most influential piece of modern art” in a survey led by The Guardian in 2004.
At First Glance
The painting consists of fifty identical images arranged symmetrically: twenty-five painted in color on the left and twenty-five in black and white on the right side. The image of Monroe was a publicity photograph made for mass reproduction from the film Niagara in 1953. Besides using photographic imagery, Warhol relied on the silk-screen technique and repetition of the same image to create a desired effect to best represent Monroe. By using two silver canvases as the foundation of this work, he referred to the form of symmetrical Christian painting, conferring a sense of dignity and immortalization onto Monroe and pop art.
Color Games
At first glance, the bright neon colors and the contrast between the left and right shock the viewers. However, the longer one looks, the more one can feel the different emotions conveyed by both panels despite their being based on the same image. On the brighter panel, her half-closed eyes, full red lips and platinum blonde hair evoke her unique trademark beauty. The blue turquoise eye shadow and the orange background make this image of her very vivid. It illustrates her life in Los Angeles as one of the most famous celebrities, and those colors may symbolize her happiness, her suffering and her success as well as her failures. On the darker side, however, her smile looks stiff and her expression seems more melancholic. The more we look at the right side, the more her face fades away under the dominant white colors, which allow only a blurry sketch of her to surface. Her face is almost entirely covered in black and only a bit remains visible. Will she be remembered as one of Hollywood’s most famous celebrities or will her fame disappear after her death? Maybe this was the question Warhol was asking himself while creating this piece of art. Decades later, it goes without saying that Monroe is still considered as a world icon. Her legacy is not only felt in Hollywood: her vivacious, alluring smile has been immortalized in the fashion world. Fifty-one years after her death, in 2013, Monroe has been named the new face of Chanel’s iconic fragrance, №5.
Through the fading images on the right, contrasting sharply with the brighter left panel, Warhol conveys the message that the up and downs in one’s lifetime is inevitable, no matter what we have achieved or how much fame we have had, death would be awaiting. It is a somewhat pessimistic and philosophical viewpoint; however, it is up to individuals to interpret this piece based on what it makes them feel. In the Marilyn Diptych, Warhol synthesized two of his recurrent themes, death and the cult of celebrity, into a masterpiece.
What’s poppin’?
Pop art is an art movement that first emerged in Europe and then spread in the United States during the mid-to-late 1950s. It challenged traditional fine art by incorporating mass-produced cultural objects such as Coca-Cola bottles, Tomato Juice Boxes, and Soup Cans into artistic representations. It deliberately places mundane objects into random or inappropriate contexts, along with other unrelated materials. The aim is to portray consumerist society, while criticizing elitist culture, and also allowing artists to freely express themselves, without the constraints of traditional fine arts.
This piece of work has been praised by Camille Paglia, an American academic and cultural critic, for showing “the multiplicity of means”. Besides the fact that the contrast of colors evokes Monroe’s life and death, the repetition of images also makes the art work “less humans” and more mechanical, implicitly referencing how food and objects were being mass-produced in factory production lines the world over. In an issue of Art News, Warhol stated that “the reason I’m painting this way is that I want to be a machine, and I feel that whatever I do and do machine-like is what I want to do.” (‘What is Pop Art? Answers from 8 Painters’, Part 1, G. R. Swenson, in Art News 62, November 1963) In the Marilyn Diptych, the repeated exposure of Monroe’s face de-sensitizes the public because it is difficult to focus on the individual images. However, the repetitions also make the image unforgettable, and reproduce the effects of commercials and audiovisual media. Through the contrast of colors, Warhol may also want to revive her and to trigger people’s reaction to this iconic status.
Lasting Legacies
In September 1949, at the age of 21, Warhol moved to New York City. With hard work and bright ideas, he soon became one of the most successful artists in the city, and won numerous awards, including the Art Director’s Club award and the Film Culture Magazine Award. Warhol has been fascinated by rich and famous people, and expressed that “in the future, everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes.” Besides Marilyn Monroe, he also painted portraits of Mick Jagger and Elvis Presley which made him even more famous.
After over half a century, the Marilyn Diptych still holds a unique place in the art world and is considered one of the most iconic pop art masterpieces. Thanks to Warhol, the youthful and sexy appearance of Marilyn Monroe has been immortalized and appreciated from generation to generation. The recurrent themes of mass culture and celebrity have also been portrayed in his art.
Despite being shy and reserved, in an interview with Gretchen Berg in 1966, Warhol expressed that: “If you want to know everything about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There’s nothing behind it”. Art was his ultimate weapon by which he attempted to convey meanings through worldly iconography and the use of repetition. His art embodies the message of “seeing the depth below the surface, that art is for everyone, and that it may be about popular culture”.
“Art is what you can get away with,” he said. With pop art, Andy Warhol realized his American dream and achieved more than just fifteen minutes of fame: coming from a poor Slovakian migrant family to being a successful artist renowned all around the world. After his death, his work is still exhibited internationally. His inspiring biography encouraged many people to explore their own talent and to pursue their dreams. Warhol’s iconic art pieces, along with Marilyn’s unforgettable smile, will always be remembered.
Ana Leite, “Andy Warhol: The Pictorial Sociologist, Mass Images and Mechanisms of Celebrity”, Galoá Journal. https://galoa.com.br/blog/andy-warhol-pictorial-sociologist-mass-images-and-mechanisms-celebrity.
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Magill, Eileen. “Andy Warhol’s World of Celebrity”, The Culture Trip, December 4, 2016. https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/canada/articles/andy-warhols-world-of-celebrity/.
Scherman, Tony, and David Dalton. “Pop: the genius of Andy Warhol.” New York, Harper, 2010.
Sharkey, Linda. “In Pictures: Marilyn Monroe’s Legacy as she is named the New face of Chanel №5”. The Independent, October 17, 2013. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/news/in-pictures-marilyn-monroes-legacy-as-she-is-named-the-new-face-of-chanel-no5-8886941.html
Vowell, Sarah. “Reading a Poker Face: Books on Andy Warhol.” Archives of American Art Journal, vol. 33, no. 4, 1993, pp. 25–31., www.jstor.org/stable/1557529.
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