Jackson Pollock

Abstract Art is art that is not an accurate representation of a form or object. The artist can represent objects in many different ways including the shape, color, and form. The artist takes the object and then either simplifies it or exaggerates it. Abstract Expressionism was the first major art movement that was started in the United States. It began in New York in the 1940’s. Abstract expressionist art, unlike regular abstract art, is more of a study in color and brush stroke. There are two types of Abstract Expressionism Art, color field painting and action painting. Color field painting artists are concerned with colors and shapes, while action artists are more concerned with paint texture and the movements of the artist to create the work.

Paul Jackson Pollock was a major artist in the abstract expressionism era in America. Pollock’s paintings were more about the motivation behind them, and processes that he took to make his pieces of artwork, rather than just the look of them, and this causes there to be deeper meaning when looking at the paintings. Pollock was an action artist. The types of actions Pollock used to make his paints were dripping and pouring the paint to his works.

Jackson Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming. Pollock began to study painting in 1929, at the Art Students League in New York. Pollock’s mentor was Thomas Hart Benton, who was a regionalist painter, but Pollock was also influenced by Mexican muralist painters Orozco, Rivera, and Siqueiros. By the mid 1940’s Pollock was painting completely as an abstract artist. Pollock would put his canvases on the ground to paint, and this way he could literally be “in” his paintings if he walked around them and worked from all four sides of the painting.

Pollock for several years had been undergoing psycho therapy for his depression, and it was thought that his depression was another reason behind his unique style of painting. Pollock would use his whole body to throw and drip paint onto very large canvases that he used for his paintings. This is what gave him the name “Jack the Dipper” and helped him coin the term action painting. Pollock wanted to abandon the European traditional of painting with easel and paintbrushes. European artist had set a standard for painting and Pollock wanted to be able to bring something new to the scene of art and how it was viewed, this is what made him turn away from easels and brushes on canvas.

It is really around 1947 is when all of Pollock’s paintings began to look like action paintings. Before 1947 his paintings are really just abstract paintings. All of Pollock’s paintings however have to be studied to even begin to make sense if they do at all. It is really the names of the paintings that give a person an idea of what to think of them. All abstract art is something that takes imagination to look at. Some of Pollock’s paintings had nothing to do with the look, but everything to do with the methods that Pollock used. The paintings Catheral made in 1947, Full Fzathom Five made in 1947, Painting made in 1948, and Lavendar Mist No1 made in 1950, are all paintings that make absolutely positively no sense what so ever, but if they were to be looked at without a name then they would just be a canvas with paint spilled on them. Pollock really shows his drip painting skills in his Untitled painting made in 1950, and Number 7 made in 1951. All of these paints are just emotion that is displayed on a canvas. There is not a true picture that is created, but the more you look at them and contemplate the names of the paintings, more you start to make a real picture out of them.

Pollock is maybe considered the greatest painter of the Abstract Expressionism art movement. Since this is the first big American Art movement, some people consider him to be the greatest American painter, but there are always going to be critics, so some people do not think he was the greatest American Painter. Unfortunately Pollock was killed in a fatal car crash in 1956, so he could not continue to add to his collection of paintings. Maybe he could have painted more pictures that eventually gave an insight to what he really meant or was feeling when he made his paintings.

When I first looked at the paintings that Pollock made I did not have much to say about them but “is this really art?”, but when I think about the worlds that artist create for themselves to live in, and how they paint those worlds for other people to enjoy, it makes sense that I am not supposed to understand art. Pollock did not make his paints so everyone could understand them, in fact I am probably more than sure he never wanted anyone to really know what his paints meant. Everybody has to make up their own meaning for abstract paintings.





Kramer, Hilton. "Jackson Pollock & the New York School, II." The New Criterion 1702 1999 April 24 2006 .

Pioch, Nicolas. "Abstract Expressionism: Jackson Pollock." The BMW Foundation 1607 2002 April 28 2006 .