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This is a really interesting article, and reinforces just how wrong the common conception that he was just "throwing paint at canvas" is. Drip technique, the wa

by beat 7y ago

This is a really interesting article, and reinforces just how wrong the common conception that he was just "throwing paint at canvas" is. Drip technique, the way Pollock did it, is technically very difficult and required substantial time and effort to perfect.

umvi 7y ago
> and required substantial time and effort to perfect. Perfect what, exactly? What's the end goal of the perfection? There's no way to measure it. Signing my name is technically very difficult - I've been perfecting it for 20+ years on various random documents and I can 100% tell if someone other than me signed my name (you can too if you study my signature for a few years at a college). Does that automatically make my signature praiseworthy and worth millions? What if I put my signature in the center of a football field sized canvas and name it "Football Sig 100.1ZZZ"?
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Unlike a Pollack painting, your signature is boring.
- alasdair_ 7y ago
  > What if I put my signature in the center of a football field sized canvas and name it "Football Sig 100.1ZZZ” In all seriousness, a signature of that scale would be art. It’s the ultimate expression of ego and people may well want to see it, because you had a point for all that labor involved (even if the point was proving how stupid art can be).
deogeo 7y ago
Modern art rejects the notion that technical difficulty can be used to judge a work (one of the few things I agree with it about) - so why should we care?
- lonelappde 7y ago
  No one said you should care. But you shouldn't dismiss it based on the invalid argument that it is easy to create. There are people (including a Prager propaganda video featuring a jealous painting peofessor) who claim that art like Pollack's isn't art or isn't good because it looks like paint thoughtlessly splattered on a floor or a smock. The point is, it doesn't, and the way it doesn't (chaotic yet balanced multiscale patterns of colors) is interesting.
  - dangus 7y ago
    I guess I wonder why people shouldn’t dismiss whatever they don’t find pleasing. The most important part of a painting to the audience is how it looks and how it makes them feel. And to a lot of people Pollock works look lazy, and it makes people feel kind of ripped off, like they paid $25 to get into this museum and they are looking at what looks like pure randomness (even if it’s truly not, even if it truly took massive amounts of talent to create). And inevitably defenders come out and insist that it’s actually groundbreaking and the first of its kind. And inevitably they look like snobs. Pollock paintings are like that rare movie on Rotten Tomatoes that has a 100% critic score and a 10% viewer score. It’s really hard not to side with the viewers. Or maybe Pollock paintings are like a Mitsubishi Mirage. Sure, it took hundreds of engineers great skill and hours to make one, certainly I could never make one, but that doesn’t change the fact that most people consider it a hella shitty car. And I’m sure someone’s out there praising its low price and great fuel economy.
    - beat 7y ago
      People shouldn't dismiss whatever they don't find pleasing. Whether or not you like something is a separate question from whether it's actually good. I mean, I hate eggs, I think they're disgusting. But I don't think they're bad. I don't think people who claim to like them are lying in order to look cool, or that people who offer me eggs are scamming me. In the case of art, I think art has value that is at least somewhat objective. Liking art, on the other hand, is almost purely subjective. But since recognizing the objective value of art requires some study and effort, people generally aren't in a position to judge. So instead, we get this weird leap where "Pollock paintings are simple and stupid"... but that collides with virtually everyone with some education in art saying "No, he was a genius". So do people think "Huh, maybe there's something here I don't understand"? No. Instead, we get "Pollock is bad art, and anyone who thinks it's good is either pretending to be cool or trying to scam us". This is why "dismiss whatever they don't find pleasing" is a bad policy.

by beat 7y ago

umvi 7y ago

> and required substantial time and effort to perfect. Perfect what, exactly? What's the end goal of the perfection? There's no way to measure it. Signing my name is technically very difficult - I've been perfecting it for 20+ years on various random documents and I can 100% tell if someone other than me signed my name (you can too if you study my signature for a few years at a college). Does that automatically make my signature praiseworthy and worth millions? What if I put my signature in the center of a football field sized canvas and name it "Football Sig 100.1ZZZ"?

lonelappde 7y ago
Unlike a Pollack painting, your signature is boring.
alasdair_ 7y ago
> What if I put my signature in the center of a football field sized canvas and name it "Football Sig 100.1ZZZ” In all seriousness, a signature of that scale would be art. It’s the ultimate expression of ego and people may well want to see it, because you had a point for all that labor involved (even if the point was proving how stupid art can be).

deogeo 7y ago

Modern art rejects the notion that technical difficulty can be used to judge a work (one of the few things I agree with it about) - so why should we care?

lonelappde 7y ago
No one said you should care. But you shouldn't dismiss it based on the invalid argument that it is easy to create. There are people (including a Prager propaganda video featuring a jealous painting peofessor) who claim that art like Pollack's isn't art or isn't good because it looks like paint thoughtlessly splattered on a floor or a smock. The point is, it doesn't, and the way it doesn't (chaotic yet balanced multiscale patterns of colors) is interesting.
- dangus 7y ago
  I guess I wonder why people shouldn’t dismiss whatever they don’t find pleasing. The most important part of a painting to the audience is how it looks and how it makes them feel. And to a lot of people Pollock works look lazy, and it makes people feel kind of ripped off, like they paid $25 to get into this museum and they are looking at what looks like pure randomness (even if it’s truly not, even if it truly took massive amounts of talent to create). And inevitably defenders come out and insist that it’s actually groundbreaking and the first of its kind. And inevitably they look like snobs. Pollock paintings are like that rare movie on Rotten Tomatoes that has a 100% critic score and a 10% viewer score. It’s really hard not to side with the viewers. Or maybe Pollock paintings are like a Mitsubishi Mirage. Sure, it took hundreds of engineers great skill and hours to make one, certainly I could never make one, but that doesn’t change the fact that most people consider it a hella shitty car. And I’m sure someone’s out there praising its low price and great fuel economy.
  - beat 7y ago
    People shouldn't dismiss whatever they don't find pleasing. Whether or not you like something is a separate question from whether it's actually good. I mean, I hate eggs, I think they're disgusting. But I don't think they're bad. I don't think people who claim to like them are lying in order to look cool, or that people who offer me eggs are scamming me. In the case of art, I think art has value that is at least somewhat objective. Liking art, on the other hand, is almost purely subjective. But since recognizing the objective value of art requires some study and effort, people generally aren't in a position to judge. So instead, we get this weird leap where "Pollock paintings are simple and stupid"... but that collides with virtually everyone with some education in art saying "No, he was a genius". So do people think "Huh, maybe there's something here I don't understand"? No. Instead, we get "Pollock is bad art, and anyone who thinks it's good is either pretending to be cool or trying to scam us". This is why "dismiss whatever they don't find pleasing" is a bad policy.