Understanding the graphics of Andy Warhol is something kindred to calculating out a Zen conundrum. That is. and people will look for something extraordinary when all they need to make is understand the simpleness of what they are sing. Andy Warhol’s construct of pop art involved taking the really common images in showing them in such a manner that the commonalty was elevated. But can you truly promote something that is common? Apparently so ; Warhol did this quite efficaciously in his earlier plants. However. in ulterior old ages. Warhol’s work started to look a small tired.
Possibly the freshness of pop art was have oning off and Warhol’s creativeness had stretched thin. There were. nevertheless. some interesting pieces of art produced by Warhol in the last decennary of his life. This return to inspired creativeness is apparent in 1981’s picture Dracula. one of his most underrated plants. What was the inspiration for the Dracula picture? Was it Bram Stoker’s novel? Was it the authoritative Bela Lougosi reading? Was it the popular drama passion of Dracula that proved really successful at the clip?
To a grade. they may hold all had their influences in motivating Warhol to utilize Dracula as capable affair. But. do non allow be fooled: Warhol was likely really influenced by a movie he produced entitled blood for Dracula. blood for Dracula was an uneven dark. tragic sarcasm that saw the aging Count travel to the Catholic state of Italy to happen virgin blood. Unless he can happen such a victim. he will ( eventually ) dice of old age. Of class. his hunt for a virgin proves bootless and his yearss are numbered.
While the obvious sarcasm of morality is apparent. non so apparent is the impression that Dracula represents the old universe of the nobility. Dracula remains the last of the blue bloods holding seen the universe he antecedently knew vanishing to the enlargement of Marxism. It is this same elusive subject that is besides present in the Dracula picture and that is what makes it so dramatic. With Fangs bared. ness hood turned upwards. and eyes broad unfastened it would look that this is a awful image of Dracula.
Upon close scrutiny. it truly isn’t. Yes. in a old coevals the image of Dracula recreated by Warhol would be considered terrorizing. However. by 1981. said to image truly is – for deficiency of a better word – corny. Economic sufferings. foreign policy discord. and societal turbulence had driven horror films to go more violent and more in writing. The authoritative monsters merely became a casualty of the epoch. They were no longer scaring. And. as the picture infers. Dracula knows this.
If you look closely into the eyes of Dracula ( in the picture ) you will detect unquestionably out of topographic point emotions. The eyes merely do non look endangering or scaring. Actually. they appear more baffled than anything else. They are broad unfastened and “glassey” and apparently hold a double look of daze and ennui. Possibly Dracula is shocked that he is no longer scaring. Or. possibly. he is merely bored of his function as King of the Vampires. Either manner. this would bespeak a character that understands clip has passed him by.
This is clearly non the Count Dracula of water under the bridge epoch. This is a important point because it is this “past him prime” visual aspect that Warhol seemingly wanted to capture. This is interesting since he opts non to promote a character from pop civilization ; but. alternatively. decides to deconstruct one. In a manner. there is a melancholic unhappiness found in Warhol’s Dracula picture. This would look to do sense. nevertheless. since the true function of pop art is to picture things as we truly see them. In 1981. we were no longer looking at Dracula as a character every bit much as a tired imitation.
