Lot 54 | Andy Warhol | Beethoven

From icon to icon
Warhol's portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven demonstrates the artist's ability to manipulate and appropriate images to create visual icons. For this series, Warhol draws on an already famous portrait of the artist Joseph Karl Stieler (1781-1858) from 1820, which captures Beethoven's personality like no other. Warhol skillfully highlights the impatient facial expression, lion's mane, and hands in his interpretation through the use of color. The rest of the body more or less blends into the background.

The Moonlight Sonata
However, Warhol takes Stieler's visual identification of the composer one step further, beyond mere facial recognition. Warhol does not content himself with using Beethoven's tools of the trade, the manuscript and the pen, to allude to the composer's talent, but lets the music run directly over the portrait itself. In Stieler's painting, Beethoven holds the score of his late “Missa solemnis” in his hand. The mass is one of his greatest works. Warhol, however, chooses the score of his Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor—better known as the “Moonlight Sonata”—for his portrait. By using the more popular “Moonlight Sonata,” Warhol proves once again that he does not want to create an image, but rather a cliché of reality that turns the person into a legend.