Takka Takka (Lichtenstein)
{{Short description|Painting by Roy Lichtenstein}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=August 2016}}
{{Infobox artwork
| image_file=Takka Takka.jpg
| backcolor=
| painting_alignment=
| image_size=300px
| title=Takka Takka
| artist=Roy Lichtenstein
| year={{Start date|1962}}
| medium=Oil on canvas
| height_metric =142.2
| width_metric = 172.7
| height_imperial =56
| width_imperial = 68
| city= Cologne
| museum=Museum Ludwig}}
Takka Takka is a 1962 pop art painting by Roy Lichtenstein in his comic book style of using Ben-Day dots and a story panel. This work is held in the collection of the Museum Ludwig.{{cite web|url=http://www.lichtensteinfoundation.org/coll1.htm|title=Lichtensteins in Museums|accessdate=June 22, 2013|publisher=LichtensteinFoundation.org|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130606073129/http://lichtensteinfoundation.org/coll1.htm|archivedate=June 6, 2013|df=mdy-all}} The title comes from the onomatopoeic graphics that depict the sound that comes from a machine gun.
Background
Lichtenstein was a trained United States Army pilot, draftsman and artist as well as a World War II (WWII) veteran who never saw active combat.{{cite web|url=http://www.lichtensteinfoundation.org/lfchron1.htm|title=Chronology|accessdate=June 9, 2013|publisher=Roy Lichtenstein Foundation|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130606071341/http://www.lichtensteinfoundation.org/lfchron1.htm|archivedate=June 6, 2013|df=mdy-all}}{{cite book| author = David McCarthy|author2=Horace Clifford Westermann | title = H.C. Westermann at War: Art and Manhood in Cold War America| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Si6QJBrxtRMC&pg=PA71| year = 2004| publisher = University of Delaware Press| isbn = 978-0-87413-871-9| page = 71 }} The work depicts a machine gun firing as it is situated above the camouflage of palm fronds during the Battle of Guadalcanal. The image shows shell casings and a grenade in mid flight. An explosion is stylized with the titular phrase.{{cite book| last = Weisenburger| first = Steven| title = Fables of Subversion: Satire and the American Novel| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=tIDNu7Lr0d4C&pg=PA112| accessdate = June 23, 2013| date = 1995| publisher = University of Georgia Press| isbn = 0820316687| pages = 112–113 }} The source of Takka Takka is the comic book Battlefield Action #40 (February 1962, Charlton Comics Group).{{cite web|url=http://image-duplicator.com/main.php?decade=60&year=62&work_id=81#|title=Takka Takka|accessdate=June 26, 2013|publisher=LichtensteinFoundation.org}}
Lichtenstein's reinterpretation of the original comic image eliminates the horizon line and other indications of depth of field. He further eliminates the human element by removing a hand, a helmet and the Japanese rising sun emblem.
When the characters in some of his works, e.g. Takka Takka, Whaam! and Okay Hot-Shot, Okay!, were criticised for being militaristic, Lichtenstein responded: "the heroes depicted in comic books are fascist types, but I don't take them seriously in these paintings—maybe there is a point in not taking them seriously, a political point. I use them for purely formal reasons."{{cite book| last = Naremore| first = James| title = Modernity and Mass Culture| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=CeEfBGnsbkwC&pg=PA208| accessdate = June 23, 2013| year = 1991| publisher = Indiana University Press| isbn = 0253206278| page = 208| editor = Naremore, James and Patrick M. Brantlinger }}
Critical response
{{multiple image
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| image1 = U.S. Marines storm ashore on Guadalcanal, 7 August 1942 (80-CF-112-5-3).jpg
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| image2 = Guadalcanal Aug 7 landings.svg
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The Washingtonian critic Sophie Gilbert, regards Takka Takka (along with Bratatat!) as exemplary of Lichtenstein's "aggressive, hyper-masculine war paintings" due to the depiction of the guns creating sound effects and the use of onomatopoeic words during military conflict.{{cite web|url=http://www.washingtonian.com/blogs/afterhours/art/art-preview-roy-lichtenstein-a-retrospective-at-the-national-gallery-of-art.php|title=Art Preview: "Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective" at the National Gallery of Art|accessdate=June 23, 2013|date=October 11, 2012|work=The Washingtonian|author=Gilbert, Sophie}}
Takka Takka, with its disruption of the primary narrative clause by text focused on absent details about the past or omitted present, is described as "the most unlikely conjunction of picture and story".{{cite book| last = Steiner| first = Wendy| title = Pictures of Romance: Form against Context in Painting and Literature| url =https://archive.org/details/picturesofromanc0000stei| url-access = registration| quote = takka takka lichtenstein.| date = 1987| publisher = University of Chicago Press| isbn = 0226772292| page = [https://archive.org/details/picturesofromanc0000stei/page/157 157] }} The work is regarded as one in which Lichtenstein exaggerated comic book sound effects in common pop art style.{{cite book| last = Brooker| first = Will| title = Batman Unmasked: Analyzing a Cultural Icon| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=GNRreYO91ogC&pg=PA182| accessdate = June 23, 2013| date = 2001| publisher = Bloomsbury Academic| isbn = 0826413439| page = 182 }}
In the view of critic Steven Weisenburger, Lichtenstein's reimagining creates a tension between the narrative and graphical content because the "exhausted soldiers" are absent. Takka Takka is a subversion of the interpretive conventions of "pop" culture, "but more important, it interrogates a shared idea about war, that war's sublime violence heroizes." Implicitly comparing Takka Takka to Picasso's Guernica, art historian Klaus Honnef states that the work's use of the "cartoon idiom in combination with elements of written language" demonstrates that art does not have to present the horrors of war graphically in order to be forceful.{{cite book| last = Honnef| first = Klaus| title = Pop Art| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=KRtCl1nFSV8C&pg=PA50| accessdate = June 23, 2013| date = 2004| publisher = Taschen| isbn = 3822822183| page = 50| editor = Grosenick, Uta }}
See also
{{Portal|Comics|Visual arts}}
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [http://image-duplicator.com/main.php?decade=60&year=62&work_id=81# Lichtenstein Foundation website]
{{Roy Lichtenstein}}