Jackson Pollock

Love him or hate him, Jackson Pollock is one of the most talked about artists in history. His art has been studied, dissected, discussed and criticized, but there's no doubt that he was influential in the abstract expressionist movement that swept America in the 1940's. Famous for being a tortured alcoholic who purportedly poured his subconscious onto canvases while fans, photographers and critics watched, Pollock certainly made his mark as an artist.

It's not uncommon in any gallery or museum to hear someone say, "I could do that," when looking at a piece of art work, and when it comes to the paintings of Jackson Pollock, this seems to happen more. But assuming one can do it and actually doing it are two very different things. What most people fail to realize it that Jackson Pollock studied art before he stepped into the world of abstract expressionism. It's as if he had to learn and practice the rules in order to know how to break them. To anyone who believes that he could create something like a Pollock, I encourage him to try.

One can see the influence of Pollock's teacher, Thomas Hart Benton, on his early work.

For Pollock, painting was about the technique as much as the end result. He studied methods of sand painting and muralists in order to perfect his own drip technique. In the end, though, he stated, "It doesn't make much difference how the paint is put on as long as something has been said. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement." Still, it was important for him to create a technique that could deliver his statement in the best possible way. Pollock described his experiences paintings as almost trance like. He wanted to become part of the work and let any expression move through him onto the canvas. In turn, abstract expressionism influenced many major art movements including pop art, lyrical abstraction, postminimalism, color field painting, tachisme and others. Rather than capturing images, abstract impressionists were out to capture events and emotions. What to some may appear haphazard is actually something deeper, a moment in time frozen on the canvas. It is with this understanding that a viewer can truly appreciate and get lost in Pollock's paintings.

Pollock's progression to abstract art:

Landscape with Steer

Red and Blue

Moon woman