“ Lichtenstein’s interest in comic-book and advertising images was primarily formal, translating their simple graphic style, black outlines, and flat colors into his paintings. He was particularly drawn to the way cartoons could express “violent emotion and passion in a completely mechanical and removed style.” By incorporating clichéd character types in his paintings — the tough man of action or the swooning, tearful woman — Lichtenstein ironically removed them from their original context and placed them in the realm of fine art. Despite the apparently direct relationship between his art and the cartoon sources, Lichtenstein described his process of selecting and transforming images as one of “seeing, composing, and unifying.” His drawings reflect how deftly and freely he could adjust the balance of forms, color, line, and detail; these measured studies for paintings were scaled up and projected onto canvas to be enlarged and redrawn. This process led him to adopt the use of benday dots, which quickly became his signature mark. Just as in the comics, Lichtenstein used these dots in his paintings to convey surface, tone, shading, and form; yet unlike the mechanically printed originals, Lichtenstein’s dots were painted by hand on canvas with brush or stencil. (right: Roy Lichtenstein, In the Car, 1963; oil and Magna on canvas; 30 x 40 inches. Private collection; © The Estate of Roy Lichtenstein)
