Richard Hamiltons Just What Is It...

1 Pages 338 Words

The piece entitled Just What is it That Makes Today’s Home So Different, So Appealing by Richard Hamilton is a collage of pictures from the early to mid-50’s. It is my belief that Hamilton attempted to predict the future of America by focusing on the shallow desires of human nature: sex, wealth, and superiority. His prediction was not far off in comparison to present-day standards.

In Hamilton’s collage the man and the woman seem to be his main focal points. I believe that Hamilton looked at a man’s most primitive sexual impulses and depicted the characters as he did. In the picture the woman is provocatively dressed in doilies and a lampshade. Hamilton may have been trying to express his thoughts, visually, of what men want in women: beautiful, emotionless, and excited (in the sexual sense). On the other hand, what women want in men is also what men want in themselves: big muscles and an overly large “blow pop”.

Another point I think Hamilton was trying to make was how Big Business, or corporate America, tricks people into thinking that if they have more than others do, happiness is their reward. In the piece the couple has a household of trendy gadgets and toys, even a vacuum that goes all the way upstairs, but they lack happiness. Maybe the reason neither of them is happy is because they’ve realized that even though they have beautiful spouses, a nice house, expensive possessions, and even pre-packaged ham, they’re still miserable.

Hamilton’s piece definitely has a deeper meaning and an important lesson, but whether or not the meaning he was trying to convey was received as he would have wanted, I do not know. It was an obvious attempt to give a visual depiction of America or the world in the not-too-distant future. These are young, rich, beautiful white people with a lot of expensive and an emotionally unstable relationship. It seems that his predictions were not as far off as expected....