Nothing is more bourgeois than to be afraid to look bourgeois.
- Andy Warhol.

The artist's payoff in this ritual is obvious enough. He stands to gain precisely what Freud says are the goals of the artist: fame, money, and beautiful lovers. But what about le monde, the culturati, the social members of the act? What's in it for them? Part of their reward is the ancient and semi-sacred status of Benefactor of the Arts. The arts have always been a doorway into Society and in the largest cities today the arts - the museum boards, arts councils, fund drives, openings, parties, committee meetings - have completely replaced the churches in this respect.

"Pop Art is neither abstract nor realistic," said Alloway, "though it has contacts in both directions. The core of Pop Art is neither frontier; it is, essentially, an art about signs and sign systems."

The Pop Art era is usually dated from the first one-man show of Jasper Johns at the Leo Castelli Gallery, January 20 to February 8, 1958, with paintings of American flags, letters of the alphabet, rows of numbers, and archery targets.