Картины Джексона Поллока
После Второй мировой войны возник новый художественный авангард. Война и ее последствия были поддержаны движением, которое стало известно как абстрактный экспрессионизм. Джексон Поллок, с тревогой осознавая человеческую иррациональность и уязвимость, выразил озабоченность абстрактным искусством, в котором рассказываются о пытках и страданиях. В середине 1940-х он представил свои знаменитые «слезы», которые являются одними из самых оригинальных произведений искусства.
Джексон распылил и вылил краску на холст. Он не любил мольберты и кисти, но предпочитал палки и лопаты. Сам художник назвал свой метод техникой литья, за что получил прозвище Джек Спринклер. Эта форма живописи имела связь с сюрреалистическим движением, так как была напрямую связана с выражением эмоций и настроением создателя.
1 из 2
Во многом Поллоку помогла его жена Ли Краснер. Вместе они купили дом в Спрингсе, где новатор основал свою мастерскую. Вот некоторые из самых важных работ, которые позволяют нам вспомнить годы работы и жизни художника.
«На Запад» 1934-35 годов характерно мрачное, почти мистическое качество. Закрученные формы, структурирующие изображение, создают эмоциональное напряжение, как у Эль Греко и Ван Гога.
Запад
Стражи тайн 1943 года часто интерпретируются как метафора возникновения бессознательных импульсов в сознательном мышлении, представляющая синтез источников вдохновения Поллока. Образы привлекают африканцев, коренных американцев и доисторическое искусство. Мужские и женские абстрактные «стражи» интерпретировались по-разному: как тотемы северо-западных индейцев, египетских богов, даже как комбинации игральных карт и шахматных фигур в африканских масках.
Фреска 1943 года отражает переход Джексона к капельному искусству. Эта техника была вдохновлена различными источниками, включая Пикассо, Бентон и Сикейрос. Картина стала первой масштабной работой, заказанной для квартиры известной галеристки и коллекционера Пегги Гуггенхайм. Среди культовых работ — картины «Сверкающая субстанция», «№ 5, 1948 год», «Свободная форма» и многие другие.
п. 5 августа 1948 г
В 1951 году, на пике его карьеры художника, журнал Vogue опубликовал фотографии моделей, созданных Сесилом Битоном, на фоне картин Поллока. Хотя это общественное признание было симптомом неизбежной популяризации авангардной культуры, художник постоянно подвергал сомнению направление своего искусства. На пике славы он внезапно отказался от своего фирменного стиля. Работы Джексона после 1951 года были более темными по цвету, включая коллекцию, окрашенную в черный цвет на несвязанных холстах. Эти картины назывались «Черная заливка», и их никто не покупал на выставке в галерее Бетти Парсонс в Нью-Йорке. Однако позже Поллок перешел в более коммерческую галерею, вернувшись к использованию цветных элементов.
Задний план
В 1943 году Поллок недавно подошел к концу периода работы на Федеральный художественный проект, и работал в Музей беспредметной живописи (позже Музей Соломона Р. Гуггенхайма ). Талант, проявленный его небольшими ранними картинами, был признан Говард Путцель, который познакомил его с Гуггенхаймом. Она была коллекционером произведений искусства и торговцем, и Поллок подписал контракт с ее галереей в июле 1943 года, согласно которому ему будут выплачиваться 150 долларов в месяц в качестве гонорара, которые будут зачислены в счет любых доходов от продажи его произведений искусства.
Фреска была первая комиссия Поллока. Гуггенхайм сначала подумал о том, чтобы попросить роспись на стене, но Марсель Дюшан предложил нарисовать его на холсте, чтобы его можно было перемещать. Гуггенхайм купил большой холст из бельгийского полотна и отдал его Поллоку, но в остальном не дал ему никаких указаний или инструкций, и Поллока просто попросили нарисовать то, что он хотел. Чтобы установить большое полотно, пришлось снять стену.
Планировалось, что роспись будет завершена до запланированной выставки его работ, которая откроется в ноябре 1943 года, но, по словам Ли Краснера, он продолжал смотреть на чистый холст, говоря, что он был «заблокирован В конце концов, как принято говорить, примерно 1 января 1944 года он начал лихорадочную работу, выполнив всю работу за один день.
Похоже, что на самом деле картина была закончена раньше, а не за один день.
Исследование Фрэнсиса О’Коннора показало, что в январе 1944 года Поллок отправил письмо своему брату Фрэнку: «Летом я написал довольно большую картину для мисс Гуггенхайм — 8 футов на 20 футов. Это было грандиозное развлечение ». Еще одно письмо Пегги Гуггенхайм от 12 ноября 1943 года другу, в котором она описывает: «У нас была вечеринка для нового гения Джексона Поллока; у которого сейчас здесь шоу. Он нарисовал 20-футовую фреску в моем доме у входа. Это почти всем нравится, кроме Кеннета . Скорее ему не повезло, так как он должен видеть это каждый раз, когда входит и выходит … «
Исследования, проведенные во время недавнего пребывания Мурала в Музее современного искусства и лабораториях консервации Гетти, подтверждают документальные исследования О’Коннора, еще больше опровергая легенду техническими средствами. Консерваторы Getty окончательно пришли к выводу, что «быстрая работа здесь не так, поскольку под последующими слоями заметно много участков засохшей масляной краски». Они объясняют, что научный анализ мельчайших образцов краски также подтверждает это.
Credits
New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article
in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:
Jackson Pollock history
The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:
History of «Jackson Pollock»
Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.
Critical debate
Pollock’s work has always polarized critics and has been the focus of many important critical debates.
Harold Rosenberg spoke of the way Pollock’s work had changed painting, «what was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event. The big moment came when it was decided to paint ‘just to paint.’ The gesture on the canvas was a gesture of liberation from value — political, aesthetic, moral.»
Clement Greenberg supported Pollock’s work on formalistic grounds. It fitted well with Greenberg’s view of art history as being about the progressive purification in form and elimination of historical content. He therefore saw Pollock’s work as the best painting of its day and the culmination of the Western tradition going back via Cubism and Cézanne to Monet.
Posthumous exhibitions of Pollock’s work had been sponsored by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, an organization to promote American culture and values backed by the CIA. Certain left wing scholars, most prominently Eva Cockcroft, argue that the U.S. government and wealthy elite embraced Pollock and abstract expressionism in order to place the United States firmly in the forefront of global art and devalue socialist realism. SOCIALIST REVIEW Issue 229 (April 1999) www.socialistreviewindex.org. In the words of Cockcroft, Pollock became a ‘weapon of the Cold War‘.
Painter Norman Rockwell’s work Connoisseur also appears to make a commentary on the Pollock style. The painting features what seems to be a rather upright man in a suit standing before a Jackson Pollock splatter painting. The contrast between the man and the Pollock painting, along with the construction of the scene, seems to emphasize the disparity between the comparatively unrecognizable Jackson Pollock style and traditional figure and landscape based art styles, as well as the monumental changes in the cultural sense of aesthetics brought on by the modern art movement.
Feminists criticized the machismo surrounding abstract expressionism, seeing Pollock’s work in particular as the acting out of the phallocentric male fantasy on the symbolically supine canvas.
Others such as artist, critic, and satirist Craig Brown, have been «astonished that decorative «wallpaper,» essentially brainless, could gain such a position in art history alongside Giotto, Titian, and Velazquez.»
Reynolds News in a 1959 headline stated: «This is not art — it’s a joke in bad taste.»
The 1950s and beyond
Pollock’s most famous paintings were during the «drip period» between 1947 and 1950. He rocketed to popular status following an August 8, 1949 four-page spread in Life Magazine that asked, «Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?» At the peak of his fame, Pollock abruptly abandoned the drip style.
Pollock’s work after 1951 was darker in color, often only black, and began to reintroduce figurative elements. Pollock had moved to a more commercial gallery and there was great demand from collectors for new paintings. In response to this pressure his alcoholism deepened, and he distanced himself from his wife and sought companionship in other women. After struggling with alcoholism his whole life, Pollock’s career was cut short when he died at the age of 44 in an alcohol-related, single car crash in Springs, New York on August 11, 1956. One of his passengers, Edith Metzger, died, and the other passenger, his girlfriend Ruth Kligman, survived. After his death, his wife Lee Krasner managed his estate and ensured that his reputation remained strong in spite of changing art-world trends.
After Lee died, they were buried next to each other in the Green River Cemetery in Springs. Their graves are marked by large stones embedded in the ground which lay near each other. Jackson Pollock’s stone is fairly big and Lee Krasner’s stone is the smaller of the two.
Early life and education
Paul Jackson Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming, to LeRoy and Stella Pollock on January 28, 1912. He was the youngest of five boys. A year after Pollock was born, the family relocated and most of his upbringing took place in Arizona and California. His father pursued farming, but found it hard to make a living, so he took up work as a surveyor and worked at many scenic locations along the Southwest. Pollock sometimes joined his father on these trips to the Grand Canyon and other such landscapes, and later credited these experiences for creating profound memories which influenced his artistic vision forever.
As a young man, he studied at Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles, and it was there that his interest in art began to flourish. Two of his brothers, Charles and Sanford, were also developing as artists. His eldest brother, Charles, soon left for New York to study at the Art Students League, and he urged Pollock to come and study there with him. There, they both studied under Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League. It was during this time that Pollock dropped his first name, Paul, went by his middle name, Jackson.
Under Benton’s guidance, Pollock analyzed paintings and learned the essentials of drawing and composition. He observed fresco painting first-hand with Mexican muralist, José Clemente Orozco. This organic education in mural painting is said to lead him to an interest in painting large scale works of his own.
Also during this time, Pollock’s work began to reflect Benton’s style and his «rural American scene» aesthetic. Benton’s influence on Pollock’s work can be seen most prominently in his usage of curvilinear undulating rhythms. His remarkable expression of these rhythms and movement played an essential part in his work, even in his later, more abstract paintings.
Other early influences include Picasso, Miró, and the Surrealists, as well as another Mexican muralist by the name of David Alfaro Siqueiros, who in 1936 established an experimental workshop in New York. It was there, in Siqueiros’ workshop, that Pollock first encountered the use of enamel paint and was encouraged to try unorthodox techniques such as pouring and flinging the liquid material to achieve spontaneous effects.
Even as his art was gaining in assurance and originality, Pollock was experiencing personal turmoil and recurring bouts of depression. He was also struggling to control his alcoholism, which would continue to plague him throughout his life. His brothers Charles and Sande, with whom he shared living quarters at 46 East 8th Street in Manhattan, encouraged him to seek treatment, including psychoanalysis. Although therapy was not successful in curbing Pollock’s drinking or relieving his depression, it introduced him to Jungian concepts that validated the subjective, symbolic direction his art was taking. In late 1941, Sande wrote to Charles, who had left New York, that if Jackson could «hold himself together his work will become of real significance. His painting, like this Composition no. 16, is abstract, intense, evocative in quality.»
Canvassing opinion
Like most notable artists, Jackson Pollock’s signature style of artwork was not the only style he painted with during his career; his drip technique was rather the result of the best part of two decades spent pursuing other artistic styles and inclinations. Naturally, he created his paintings on a whole range of canvas sizes and dimensions, frequently choosing to vary his painting sizes and proportions. In fact, one of the widest pieces he painted, Summertime: Number 9A, 1948 – at 18 feet 2 inches wide – was also one of his shortest, at 33¼ inches (2.7 feet) high.
We perhaps shouldn’t be surprised that it was some of his largest action paintings that he is most famous for, and which best capture the chaotic and explosive nature of his drip paintings. Nevertheless, some of his smaller dripped and poured paintings are also some of his most notable. Which is your favourite Jackson Pollock painting?
Do you prefer Pollock’s bigger or smaller paintings?
The Beatles is my biggest painting at 150x100cm
For more affordable action-painted, Jackson Pollock-inspired artwork, you can explore and shop from my selection of pop art paintings and prints from my online store, www.bykerwin.com. All of my paintings are available as luxury canvas prints, with fast worldwide delivery.
Where did Jackson Pollock do his first paintings?
There was also practicality to consider; having yet to establish his own studio, Pollock’s early paintings were created in a spare or shared room in his house or apartment in New York. Jackson often painted next to his older brother Charles (who was also an artist), so smaller canvases would have been more manageable and portable while he was transporting these to and from college.
Stylistically, Pollock’s landscapes also suited the smaller canvas size; his intricate farm, industrial and countryside-themed paintings would have been harder to execute effectively on a larger canvas size. Moreover, Pollock spent many years developing his artistic style before he became comfortable and confident in his own painting abilities – so smaller canvases were apt for someone who was nothing more than an ambitious yet still amateur painting in art school.
Pollock also continued to experiment with different art mediums for much of the 1930. Starting out small with a new medium, one of his smallest creations was a 1937 lithograph titled Figures In A Landscape measuring just 26x37cm. He also painted on small household items such as plates and tea towels as part of various art school assignments (sadly few of these items remain).
Social Context
A naïve viewer probably wonders what the essence of “a rectangle of paper covered with skeins of enamel paint” is (Seed, 2014, para. 2). However, one should consider it only in connection with the historical and cultural community spirit. By 1948, the whole world had overcome a disaster in the form of the Second World War. A good litmus test of the public mood, Abstract Expressionism, the style with no recognizable objects and accidentally, subconsciously created patterns, achieved worldwide acclaim (20th-century art, n.d.). It was the first time when the U.S. movement exerted the influence on art all over the globe. In contrast to the old order and Europe as the basis of that world, Abstract Expressionism spotlit New York as the center of the new universe. It is peculiar that the name of the movement was first used in relation to the German Expressionism that started before the First World War and came to its climax in the 1920s (O’Hara, 2015). American Abstract Expressionism was characterized as anarchic, rebellious, and even nihilistic movement, and these properties are relevant to Pollock’s works, including Number 5, 1948 (Number 5, 1948, n.d.).
This artwork is the quintessence of the post-war age when the American model of behavior, lifestyle, and thinking has become prevalent. In the context of America’s political and military triumph, the society was affected by the idea of rapid progress. The development of mass media was “a demanding force,” and the myth of a heroic individual creator rooted in the American set of values expanded at an unprecedented pace (O’Hara, 2015, p. 20). In other words, it was the century that encouraged people to move forward promptly.
Pollock’s striking acumen let him recognize the social tendencies and vividly convey his ideas through his paintings. Having begun his artist career under the supervision of Tomas Hart Benton, the Regionalist painter, Pollock concentrated on this style in the 1930s; later on, he was fascinated with the surrealistic styles and gradually came to his abstract manner (O’Hara, 2015). The most remarkable fact is that the switch from concrete (Regionalism usually depicted the rural environment in a traditionalist way) to abstract was caused by the epoch mobility. Besides, Pollock’s abstract works embody the trend emerging in those times: ideas are more valuable than skills because progress in any sphere begins with ideas (Seed, 2014). Although it is sometimes believed that Number 5, 1948 depicts a dense bird’s nest, there is hardly enough proof of it.
Pollock not only challenged the traditional concept of a masterpiece but also introduced a new technique and replaced the brushstroke with the drip. Similar to other post-1947 paintings, the artist combined the pour technique and action painting. The term “action painting” is often used in relation to Pollock’s works (O’Hara, 2015). The desire to develop a new technique stemmed from the feeling that it was necessary to find a proper instrument to respond to the challenges of the time. The artist was aware that it was important to express feelings, not illustrate them, and it agrees with the spirit of the time and life acceleration. Indeed, Number 5, 1948 addresses the quickness that is, on the one hand, relevant to the processes within the mid-20th century and refers to the way a human mind works in these new circumstances.
Overall, the social impact of the painting is that it brilliantly reflects the core elements distinguishing the epoch from other times.