For Pollock, the expression of his style was directed by "some type of mysterious, psychic force which seemed to take control of his hands and feet" 12 which may explain why some people have viewed his paintings as being accidental in nature, meaning that Pollock applied the paint without any sense of pattern or structure. This view is patently wrong, for after studying any of Pollock's paintings, it becomes clear that he did indeed possess a "madness to his method" when painting. As B.H. Friedman points out, "There is something of the mystical in Pollock's materials which motivates not only the painter but also the viewer. Perhaps it is the random fall and scatter of the paint which best express the sum of the work's overall artistic qualities." 13 number of Pollock's best works are not small in scale, for they are entire pieces of canvas stretching at times more than ten feet long and almost as wide. Thus, "the jarring dynamism of Pollock's large-scale paintings echoes the restless and perhaps rootless lifestyle of the post-war years while also expressing Pollock's philosophy of absolute freedom of choice in life and in art." 14 In his own words, Pollock justifies his highly radical painting style by stating that "The modern painter cannot express this age... In the old forms of the Renaissance or any other past culture," for he must reflect "not only the inner world of the unconscious but also the cultural experience of the time in which he lives." 15
An early example of Jackson Pollock's work can be found in his Lucifer (1947, oil, aluminum paint and enamel on canvas) which exhibits paint dragged, dripped and splattered from far above the floor in a process of excited movement which can be seen through the coherence of direction and pattern, at least in the eyes of a trained art expert. In this work, Pollock strived "for unplanned immediacy and directness and for an effect of unstudied spontaneous freshness," for according to Pollock, "It doesn't make much difference how the paint is put on as long as something had been said. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement." 16
Like many of his paintings, Pollock's Lucifer to the untrained eye appears to be nothing more than paint randomly dripped or splattered on the canvas, but upon closer inspection, this work has all the traits of a land map, similar in nature to a map showing a particular geographic area from a great height, in this case, a dense and heavily-vegetated forest with the dark areas representing bogs and swamps. As Ellen Landau sees it, Pollock's Lucifer "is an image that represents the process of the never-ending creation of nature." 17 Pollock the artist is truly in motion with a constantly changing viewpoint, much like "looking down and seeing his landscape unfold as one would see the earth from an airplane some 10,000 feet in the atmosphere." 18
Therefore, although this painting may appear strange and formless as if done by a chimpanzee, it reflects in reality new artistic forms of expression which mirror the marvelous complexities of the universe as see through a giant telescope and the infinite inner world revealed under the lens of a powerful electron microscope. In essence, Pollock's Lucifer reveals the endless and intricate relations between space and time via the entangled lines and the twisting of colors, a hodgepodge of cosmic birth and death.
One very important painting stands out above all others, namely, Pollock's Blue Poles, Number 11, rendered in 1952 and composed of aluminum and enamel...
"When I am in my painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing. It is only after a sort of "get acquainted" period that I see what I have been about. I have no fears about making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through." (Jackson Pollock) Using this method he produced beautiful canvases with interlocking and
Jackson Pollock observed, "The modern painter cannot express his age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio, in the old forms of the Renaissance or any other past culture. Each age finds its own technique." Choose three works of mid-twentieth century art that illustrate this idea and discuss them in detail. How does the technique of these particular works help convey the reality of the modern world? Jackson Pollock was indeed
Prime Minister briefing " Should U.S. support European unification? "Dwight D. Elsenhower 1957 Since Jackson Pollock painted in a number of different styles and genres during his lifetime, it is with some difficulty that one can identify his aims and goals. During his career which began in earnest during the 1930's and spanned until his death in the 1960's, Pollock produced works that were indicative of cubism, surrealism, and abstract expressionism.
Legacy of Jackson Pollock The artist Jackson Pollock was renowned for using non-traditional methods to create very untraditional pieces of art. At the time that he was working and up to the modern historical moment, many people look at a piece by Pollock and do not see it as art. Instead, they may likely proclaim that it is just lines or random colors on a canvas and thus does not
Art History: Post War The global impact of the Second World War II on the society, politics, culture and technology was reflected how art produced after 1945 was changing in appearance and feeling. The rapid significant changes were a reflection of the intense and sometimes radical responses made by artists. Artists' works during this period responded to or questioned the nature personal and national identity, gender/race issues, the emergence and
20th Century Modern Art An Analysis of Three Works of Mid-20th Century Modern Art Wassily Kandinsky helped open up the door to abstract art with his book Concerning the Spiritual in Art. A lawyer by trade and a latecomer to the art world, Kandinsky made art that was an expression of the "spiritual" side of life: an abstract representation of the world beneath the world. Kandinsky's works were everything modern art wanted to
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