Jackson Pollack essays

Jackson Pollack essays On the floor I am more at ease, I feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk around in it, work from the four sides and be literally in the painting. These are the words of the great 1940s artist Jackson Pollack, a commanding figure in the Abstract Expressionist movement. In this essay I will talk a little about Pollacks history, his work Full Fathom Five, and the parallels between Pollacks work and 1940s lifestyle. Paul Jackson Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming in January of 1912. His family frequently moved around the western United States, as his father took various jobs to support them. When his father finally landed a steady job as a land surveyor in the Grand Canyon and other parts of the Southwest, Pollock often joined him. He later remarked that his memories of the panoramic landscape influenced his artistic vision. In 1930, Pollock joined his 2 brothers in New York at the Art Students League. He studied under the Regionalist painter Thomas Hart Benton. Pollocks works in the 1930s had Regionalist and slight Surrealist influences in them. The early 1940s marked a significant change in Pollocks style of painting. Native American motifs and other pictographic imagery began to play a role in his paintings, which showed the beginning of a new, more mature style. By the mid-1940s, Pollock began painting completely abstract. With his 1949 painting Full Fathom Five, Pollock truly showed what art could become. He began using his drip technique in 1947. Pollock would fix his canvas to the floor and drip paint from a can using a variety of objects to manipulate the paint. He would use nails, coins, needles, and various other small objects on the canvas itself and let the paint flow around them. It is one of the first action ...