Monday, July 23, 2007
Jackson Pollack
Wrapped up the Summer drawing course with a 2+ hour movie detailing the rise and fall of Jackson Pollack. If you're not familiar, Pollack was an early-to-mid 20th century painter who was one of the original abstract-expressionist painters. He is also credited with being the father of action painting. His work was some of the most original of its time, and he eventually achieved a high level of fame, though he would truly rise, peak, and plateau in the span of about 10 years. Eventually, his notoriety began fading, as did his output and relevance.
He was born in 1912 and would be dead by 1956. In that time, he developed a unique style born of years struggling in New York City. He would achieve fame with the help of Peggy Gugenheim and Clement Greenberg. Gugenheim was Pollock's primary patron, and Greenberg was the most powerful art critic of his day. Once both of these individuals were on Pollock's side, his eventual rise to fame was almost assured. Inevitably, he climbed the short ladder to the top of America's modern art hierarchy, where he would remain for a decade.
Unfortunately, Pollock was also a raging alcoholic. On more than one occasion, he found himself waking up on a New York sidewalk or storm drain. Prior to achieving fame in the 1940s, Pollock was regularly on the verge of being homeless. Between his lack of money and his dependence on alcohol, it's amazing the man survived to become Amerca's most famous artist, but he did.
By the 1950s, the American art scene had begun moving away from abstract expressionism and Pollock seemed to be less motivated by it himself. Instead, he returned to figure drawing, something abstractionists had expressly sought to move away from. His time at the top had more or less ended by the time he decided to drive his mistress and her friend around town at a high rate of speed while loaded to the gills with liquor. At some point, he miscalculated, left the road, and killed both himself, and his mistress' friend Edith Metzger. His girlfriend, Ruth Kligman, survived the crash, and continues to make art to this day.
In many ways, Pollock embodied the troubled, drug-addled artist stereotype. He was impetuous, arrogant, pretentious, and very likely a narcissist. His art fails to move me, but then I do not have the intellectual background required to fully appreciate what he was trying to do. Pollock's work seems to be more of an academic exercise than an expression of his soul, but then there are people with far more valid credentials than I who would argue that his portfolio is exactly the opposite. With those people, I would have to politely agree to disagree. Suffice it to say, I am not particularly interested in the abstract expressionist period.
All that said, I am very much looking forward to next term's painting class. I have hardly any experience with paint, and that tidbit of dabbling was done over 12 years ago now. This should be fun. :)
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