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How did Robert Rauschenberg use printed matter and commercial packaging in his assemblages?

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Five Andy Warhol paintings of Campbell's soup cans, each labeled with a different soup variety, displayed in a row on a white wall at Museumsquartier in Vienna. — Pop art *Campbell's Soup Cans*, polymer paint on canvas by Andy Warhol, 1962; a selection of five on display in the Museumsquartier, Vienna.

Robert Rauschenberg’s approach to incorporating printed matter and commercial packaging was central to his development of assemblage and his influence on the Pop art movement.

Inspired by the "Merz" collages of Kurt Schwitters, Rauschenberg began pasting together heterogeneous collections of printed materials—including newspaper photographs, commercial packaging, and comic-strip illustrations—onto his canvases. He treated the picture surface as a "flatbed," a concept described by critic Leo Steinberg, which allowed him to pin or arrange these images across the surface rather than attempting to unify them through traditional Modernist criteria.1

Beyond these collaged elements, Rauschenberg expanded his practice to include three-dimensional objects such as Coca-Cola bottles and traffic barricades, which he integrated into his "combine" paintings. By incorporating these everyday items, Rauschenberg challenged the boundaries between painting and sculpture, effectively elevating consumer culture materials into the realm of fine art.213