Behind the Art
What is art? By definition it is, “An occupation requiring knowledge or skill” (Merriam). Many people would argue that late artist Jackson Pollock’s work would not go under this category. But Pollock’s paintings were not random splats and splashes, but carefully planned and expertly executed works of art.
In order to understand Pollock’s work, it’s important that you know a little about him. Jackson Pollock was born in Wyoming in 1912. His family moved around the southwest before settling in Los Angeles. At age 18 he dropped out of high school and moved to New York, where he struggled for more than a decade to make it as an artist.
Pollock was a very complex and emotionally distraught man. By this time in his life, Pollock had already become a full-blown alcoholic. His brother Sanford, who taught as an apprentice at the school where Pollock was studying, wrote to a family friend,
Jackson has been having a very difficult time with himself. This past year has been a succession of periods of emotional instability for him, which is usually expressed by a complete loss of responsibility both to himself and to us. Accompanied, of course, with drinking. It came to the point where it was obvious that the man needed help. He was mentally sick. So I took him to a well-recommended doctor, a psychiatrist, who has been trying to help the man find himself. As you know troubles such as his are very deep-rooted, in childhood usually, and it takes a long while to get them ironed out. He has been going some six months now and I feel there is a slight improvement in his point of view (Landau 17).
Pollock branched out to explore the expression of himself thr...
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...y of his own mind and the ideas that he believed in. Although Pollock was a psychologically complex man, he was a genius of his time, showing us not only a new way to paint but also a new way to think. “Jack the Dripper” is one to be remembered and missed.
Works Cited
“About Jackson Pollock.” 1 May 2003. <http://www.jacksonpollock.com/index.html>
Landau, Ellen G. Jackson Pollock. NY: Harry N. Abrams, Inc, 1989.
Lehrer, Jim. “Jack the Dripper.” January 11, 1999. 1 May 2003. <http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june99/pollock_1-11.html>
Merriam Webster Dictionary. 1 May 2003.
<http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary>
Moore, Barbara. “Jackson Pollock.” 2003. 1 May 2003. <http://www.nga.gov/feature/pollock/
Varnedoe, Kirk, and Pepe Karmel. Jackson Pollock. NY: Harry N. Abrams, Inc, 1999.
You learn early on in the story that Jackson Jackson has not had the best life. He flunked out of college in Seattle, was married two or three times and has fathered a few children and is now homeless. Jackson admits that “Being homeless is probably the only thing I've ever been good at” and refers to himself as an “effective homeless man”. Also we learn that Jackson has some kind of mental disorder “an...
January 28, 1912, Paul Jackson Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming. He was the youngest of five boys, and began taking an interest in art after his oldest brother, Charles Pollock. He later enrolled at Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles, first doing sculptures, and then later doing paintings. After getting kicked out for starting fights, he moved to New York and shadowed Thomas Hart Benton, attending the Art Students League. Benton’s family took Jackson under their wing. But after his father died suddenly, Pollock became depressed. This lead to excessive drinking and the threatening of Charles’ wife with an ax that he threw at one of Charles’ paintings scheduled for an upcoming exhibition. He was then kicked out, and the Great Depression started to take place.
While there is optimism in Jackson’s life we also find loneliness. The author shows the desolation that Jackson feels in the following line: “Piece by piece I disappeared” (p.170). The author portrays a slow dissolution of self. While there are people in his life there is a detachment as well. Throughout the story we realize that Jackson seems to buy his friends, through Rose and Junior with alcohol to the Aleuts with breakfast. Jackson’s “teammates, defender’s and posse” disappear and this further isolates Jackson. While Jackson lives a solitary life this does not stop him from buying friends where he
If I were to ask you what is art, and how can one find it? What would you say? Well if it were me being asked those question, I would simply say that art to me is a form of a picture; a visual painting or model of some design and it could be found all among us. You may define it differently only because art could be defined in many ways. I could simply say that art to me is a form of a picture; a visual painting or model of some design. Well according to an article written by Shelley Esaak, an art history expert she mentioned that art has a way of stimulating different parts of our brains to make us laugh or incite us to riot, with a whole gamut of emotions in between. She also mentioned that art gives us a way to be creative and express ourselves. [1]
It all began when “three strange figures” who later turned out to be three witches “told [Macbeth] he would become king (Nuttall 1). Macbeth at this time was a loyal kinsman to Duncan, the current king. While it was a thought in the back of his mind that Macbeth would eventually like to take the throne, it never occurred to him that he would have the murder Duncan in order to do so. The witches added turmoil to this idea by talking about Banquo as well and stating that Banquo’s sons will become king as well. This prophecy made it inevitable that murder would eventually take place. Although hesitant at first, Macbeth, with the persistent help of Lady Macbeth, followed through with the murder and took the throne as King. Had the witches not told Macbeth his prophecy, Macbeth would more than likely not have resorted to the tactics and actions it took for him to in due course become king. At this point in the story, Macbeth is not a cold-blooded murderer who he is destined to become later. Duncan’s murder was Macbeth’s first time to kill another man; however, this wouldn’t be his last as a cover-up would be needed. “[Macbeth] require[ed] a clearness” so t...
Jackson Pollock was an American abstract artist born in Cody, Wyoming in 1912. He was the youngest of his five brothers. Even though he was born on a farm, he never milked a cow and he was terrified of horses because he grew up in California. He dropped out of high school at the age of seventeen and proceeded to move to New York City with his older brother, Charles, and studied with Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League. Thomas Benton was already a great artist at the time in which Pollock studied with him. Benton acted like the father figure in Pollock’s life to replace the original that wasn’t there. Benton was known for his large murals that appear on ceilings or walls. “Jack was a rebellious sort at all times,” recalls his classmate and friend, artist Harold Lehman. He grew his hair long and helped pen a manifesto denouncing athletics, even though “he had a muscular build and the school wanted to put him on the football team,” says former teacher Doug Lemon. Pollock always was upset with himself in his studies because he had troubles drawing things like they were supposed to look. From 1938 to 1942, Jackson joined a Mexican workshop of people with a painter named David Siqueiros. This workshop painted the murals for the WPA Federal Art Projects. This new group of people started experimenting with new types of paint and new ways of applying it to large canvas. People say that this time period was when Jackson was stimulated with ideas from looking at the Mexican or WPA murals. Looking at paintings from Picasso and the surrealists also inspired Jackson at this time. The type of paint they used was mixing oil colors with paint used for painting cars. Jackson noticed that the shapes and colors they created were just as beautiful as anything else was. Jackson realized that you didn’t have to be able to draw perfect to make beautiful paintings. Jackson started developing a whole new way of painting that he had never tried before and his paintings were starting to look totally different from before.
Plus him some what justifying street art doesn't help him out. His father was an abusive alcoholic, and even that didn’t stop Pollock from falling under the influence of alcoholism himself. Though he did end up paying for it on August 11, 1956 when Pollock died at the age of 44 from drunk driving. (biography.com) And I see why a school drop out isn’t someone that is exactly ideal to represent the making of America, but he has done so much more than those mistakes and should be remembered for the good he did in his life.
The intrinsic values of communism rely on the basic tenet that all citizens will sacrifice individualistic ideals for the greater good of Society. Each member of society must sacrifice himself for the sake of others, resulting in a country where each citizen is effectively the same as others in terms of wealth, property, and class. Effectively, each member of society is but one part used to build an impressive machine: taken independently, each cog seems worthless, but in the context of the ...
Although Shirley Jackson had many psychological problems, she contributed greatly to society through her works. Shirley Jackson was a profound and ambivalent writer. She did not write to please the world but she wrote to convey how she felt about societies in the world. Her psychological problems did have an affect on her writing and it greatly connects with her life. Shirley Jackson was a very unwelcomed writer in her time and that is because many readers did not want to believe that what she wrote was true. Jackson wrote on the horrors that the human being is capable of. Furthermore, Jackson’s mental state only strengthened her work, giving her the advantage of a new perspective; one that most individuals in society lacked.
Pollock uses different aspects of writing to back up her thesis and to emphasis that there is more to the subject the artist use in their creation. By using a variety of resources and counter-arguing them, she is backing up her own thesis and proving that there is a stereotype in art history where art historians do not explain past the artistic influence thus does not fully explain an artist or their artworks. She makes a point that because of this, there has to be changes to art practices today in order to fully understand the meaning behind artworks.
Art is defined as the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power. Jackson Pollock does an amazing job creating art. Pollock’s works are not as big as some of the other artists like Monet’s paintings but his works are still large enough to engulf the viewer.
Paul Jackson Pollock, A major American figure in the abstract expressionist movement, and also a very famous artist. Pollock was very known for his drip painting which is art that has no actual pictures or things in the art piece that are recognizable, rather it is paint that is poured on to the canvas. Pollock became famous because he changed the way of art by the way he did his work. Many people such as myself would think that this is such a simple piece of art, when rather the piece Move It is a lot bigger than the human body which required Jackson to paint on the floor. Rather than showing the main idea of the work physically, the art piece is intended to show it emotionally from the way the lines are set up, normally the lines in an artpiece
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In the piece of art, on the left there is a lot more going on, on the right there isn’t a lot of anything going on. Jackson Pollock was an American painter who was based out of New York. In his time, he was considered an Abstract Expressionist and was one of the most conspicuous of his time. He was a very confident artist, and no matter what was going on in his life, he put his whole heart in every piece of art that he created. In Untitled (Collage 1), Pollock was trying to show his knowledge of the concept of scale.
Art can be defined in many ways by an individual. One can say that any creative output by a person is considered art. Others contend that art must conform to a societal standard and the basis of the creation should be understood by most intellectual people. For example, some contend that computer-generated images, such as fractals, are not art due to the large role played by a computer. E.O. Wilson states “the exclusive role of the arts is to intensify aesthetic and emotional response. Works of art communicate feeling directly from mind to mind, with no intent to explain why the impact occurs” (218). A simple definition may be that art is the physical expression of the ideals formed by the mind.