Roy Lichtenstein
29.2 × 44.9 in
Entablature X (C.147) and its companion Entablature XA (C.148) closed Roy Lichtenstein's Entablature Series as works distinguished by their inclusion of text — the word JVSTITIA, Latin for justice, rendered in bold letterforms across the architectural ornament. The text introduced a dimension absent from the preceding works: where the earlier prints had examined the decorative conventions of classical architecture,, the inclusion of JVSTITIA made explicit the ideological content the series had previously held at arm's length.
JVSTITIA was the inscription above a specific civic building — a courthouse — and its appearance in the final works turned the series into a direct question about the relationship between architectural decoration and institutional power. The classical entablature had been adopted by American civic architecture precisely because it carried associations of permanence, authority, and civilisational continuity. Lichtenstein's rendering of that inscription through the bold marks of his print practice did not satirise the claim but made its construction visible.
Entablature X (C.147) closed the series with a directness all the preceding prints had avoided — naming, at last, the institutional content the decorative system had always been carrying.
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