A Critique of “Hers is a Lush Situation”
We were given two articles written by Hal Foster and Jonathan Katz, which both argue the meaning of three of Richard Hamilton’s paintings. These paintings are; Hommage a Chrysler Corp, Hers is a Lush Situation, and AAH!, all done in between 1957 and 1962. Foster believes that in each of these three paintings by Hamilton, he is trying to question why sex is everywhere in our society. Jonathan Katz believes that by combining the woman with the car in the painting, that Hamilton is making us think of something that we hadn’t before. He calls it a non-oppositional combination. Katz seemed to think that by doing this, Hamilton is trying to empower women. I believe that Hamilton was instead trying to do what Foster believed, and make us question the oversexualised ads and commercials that we had even back then.…show more content… In Hers is a Lush Situation, cars and women are not two things that traditionally go together, so Katz believed that Hamilton giving the woman power she didn’t have before by putting her into the car. He believed that by combining the masculine figure of the car, and the feminine figure, he was giving the woman control instead of the man. While I do see that that is a possible way to view it, I believe that Hamilton came off more misogynistic than empowering to women. To me, combining the woman with the car depersonalizes her, and turns her into another one of her man’s “playthings”. While he does call it non-oppositional, even in the painting, the car is taking over the woman, which to me seems to directly symbolize men being stronger than