4 ms·

You’re right; if it looks good, it is good. But don’t diminish Pollock’s hard earned technical ability that was necessary for his breakthrough in abstract expr

by jrsdav 6y ago

You’re right; if it looks good, it is good. But don’t diminish Pollock’s hard earned technical ability that was necessary for his breakthrough in abstract expressionism. It can be difficult for artists to get past the hurdle of mastering their medium so they can arrive at a place where they can really begin to express their intuitions. Acknowledging and admiring this does not make it snobbish.

pmoriarty 6y ago
"don’t diminish Pollock’s hard earned technical ability" What technical ability was that? I view Pollock's success as more of a result of stumbling in to a bit of the art world's search space that hadn't been explored before, and his championing by a highly influential art critic that liked his work. After that there was a Life magazine spread that brought him to popular attention. None of this had anything to do with his technical ability, and I would be very surprised if even Pollock himself claimed that his paintings were technically difficult to accomplish.
- jrsdav 6y ago
  The use of pigments and their combination to form a palette, the way he held the brush and moved his body, the amount of force he applied, the viscosity of paint... As someone who works extensively in an art medium (ceramics), I relate to these as technical challenges. It's very time consuming to reign in control over these factors to the point where they become "right", however subjective, to the artist. The consistency of Pollock's work, to me, shows that he had a systematic approach to how he technically achieved his work (fractal analysis also seems to prove this [1]). I won't argue if it made his work more successful, but he clearly had a level of intention and skill that I personally admire. [1] https://blogs.uoregon.edu/richardtaylor/2016/02/08/fractal-analysis-of-jackson-pollocks-poured-paintings/ https://blogs.uoregon.edu/richardtaylor/2016/02/08/fractal-a...
  - pmoriarty 6y ago
    "The use of pigments and their combination to form a palette, the way he held the brush and moved his body, the amount of force he applied, the viscosity of paint. As someone who works extensively in an art medium (ceramics), I relate to these as technical challenges." I make art in various media myself, but don't look at the elements you list as technical challenges as much as they are expressive choices which provide a sort of a "fingerprint" or signature on an artist's work. In contrast, technical challenges that require a high amount of skill would be the creation, purely by hand and without mechanical assistance, of something like Albrecht Durer's Meloncolia[1], Michelangelo's Moses[2] or Sistine Chapel, to name but a few. These works require not just the artist's personal distinctive "fingerprint" but the skill to create great verisimilitude in approximating the appearance of living beings and other things in the "external", "real" world. Any number of mistakes, from proportion to lighting to texture to anatomy, could have been made that would have made their work look "wrong". The same couldn't be said of Pollock's work. Whether he chose to fling his paint right or left, up or down, would have resulted in more or less the same splatter effect, as long as he kept to pretty much the same paint density and color scheme. That's really not much of a skill compared to the master draftsmen like Michelangelo and Durer. I also don't believe being systematic is evidence of skill. It's just evidence of organization. Don't get me wrong, though. I like Pollock myself and consider that at its best his work achieves a high level of energy and harmony that is appealing to me. However, I believe that if just about anyone makes enough random splatter paintings, then those kinds of happy accidents are bound to come along eventually. It really doesn't take much, if any, skill in my eyes. He just happened to do it first. [1] - http://www.albrechtdurerblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/melencolia_i.jpg http://www.albrechtdurerblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/... [2] - https://i2.wp.com/befrontmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/99cb15ab5e3426e119ec304ff40eb028.jpg https://i2.wp.com/befrontmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/...

by jrsdav 6y ago

pmoriarty 6y ago

"don’t diminish Pollock’s hard earned technical ability" What technical ability was that? I view Pollock's success as more of a result of stumbling in to a bit of the art world's search space that hadn't been explored before, and his championing by a highly influential art critic that liked his work. After that there was a Life magazine spread that brought him to popular attention. None of this had anything to do with his technical ability, and I would be very surprised if even Pollock himself claimed that his paintings were technically difficult to accomplish.

jrsdav 6y ago
The use of pigments and their combination to form a palette, the way he held the brush and moved his body, the amount of force he applied, the viscosity of paint... As someone who works extensively in an art medium (ceramics), I relate to these as technical challenges. It's very time consuming to reign in control over these factors to the point where they become "right", however subjective, to the artist. The consistency of Pollock's work, to me, shows that he had a systematic approach to how he technically achieved his work (fractal analysis also seems to prove this [1]). I won't argue if it made his work more successful, but he clearly had a level of intention and skill that I personally admire. [1] https://blogs.uoregon.edu/richardtaylor/2016/02/08/fractal-analysis-of-jackson-pollocks-poured-paintings/ https://blogs.uoregon.edu/richardtaylor/2016/02/08/fractal-a...
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  "The use of pigments and their combination to form a palette, the way he held the brush and moved his body, the amount of force he applied, the viscosity of paint. As someone who works extensively in an art medium (ceramics), I relate to these as technical challenges." I make art in various media myself, but don't look at the elements you list as technical challenges as much as they are expressive choices which provide a sort of a "fingerprint" or signature on an artist's work. In contrast, technical challenges that require a high amount of skill would be the creation, purely by hand and without mechanical assistance, of something like Albrecht Durer's Meloncolia[1], Michelangelo's Moses[2] or Sistine Chapel, to name but a few. These works require not just the artist's personal distinctive "fingerprint" but the skill to create great verisimilitude in approximating the appearance of living beings and other things in the "external", "real" world. Any number of mistakes, from proportion to lighting to texture to anatomy, could have been made that would have made their work look "wrong". The same couldn't be said of Pollock's work. Whether he chose to fling his paint right or left, up or down, would have resulted in more or less the same splatter effect, as long as he kept to pretty much the same paint density and color scheme. That's really not much of a skill compared to the master draftsmen like Michelangelo and Durer. I also don't believe being systematic is evidence of skill. It's just evidence of organization. Don't get me wrong, though. I like Pollock myself and consider that at its best his work achieves a high level of energy and harmony that is appealing to me. However, I believe that if just about anyone makes enough random splatter paintings, then those kinds of happy accidents are bound to come along eventually. It really doesn't take much, if any, skill in my eyes. He just happened to do it first. [1] - http://www.albrechtdurerblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/melencolia_i.jpg http://www.albrechtdurerblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/... [2] - https://i2.wp.com/befrontmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/99cb15ab5e3426e119ec304ff40eb028.jpg https://i2.wp.com/befrontmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/...