Jackson Pollack and Jasper John: Art History - Research Paper Example

Pollack poured and slinged, twisted and turned the paint in order to allow it freedom on the canvas. His work is as known for its strong visual impact as the method by which he created his work. Pollock had a strong personality, his work reflecting his spirit as he explored expressionism. Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming, but spent most of his youth in Arizona and California. The youngest of five, Pollock’s older brother Charles was the first to attend art school in New York, studying under Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Student’s League.

In 1930, Jackson moved to New York and began to study alongside of his older brother under Benton (Ratcliffe 3). It was during a group exhibition that he met the woman who would become his wife, artist Lee Krasner. The early work of Pollock, once he was working independently, reflected his teacher, Benton, who “sought to create a ’national’ American identity in large scenic depictions, often murals, of everyday life in the American regions in order to oppose European modernism” (Pollock and Essers 18).

Pollock’s work, however, did not capture the realistic nature of Benton and tended towards an abstracted form. His work The Flame (1934-38) can be seen as the precursor to the way in which he would eventually express himself. According to Pollock and Essers, the work is “one of the earliest examples of Pollock’s tendency to integrate the representational in rhythmic structures and finally to free it of figural associations” (19). Benton was a huge influence on the work that Pollock did until 1938 when he began to expand his influences.

A frequent use of the image of an eye most likely represents influences from the Surrealists as they had used the it as a symbol to represent “the interface between the interior and the exterior world” (Pollock and Essers 21). In 1941 a major exhibition was revealed at the Museum of Modern Art which had the title “Indian Art of the United States”. Pollock visited the exhibit several times which inspired his interest in Native American tribal art. Through these visits, he watched the construction of artworks which were created by sand flowing from the hand onto the ground (Pollock and Essers 24).

In 1943, Jean Connelly, a friend of Peggy Guggenheim, gave a Spring Salon show that featured young artists under the age of 35, which included Pollock. After urging from friends who were integral to the art world in New York, Guggenheim offered Pollock a one-man show and a year contract which paid him $150 per month against the commissions on his sold paintings from which her gallery would receive one third of the sale price. If $2700 dollars worth or art from Pollock was not sold, she would get the difference in artwork.

Pollock was revered as one of the best hopes for the advancement of art within America. His work, while still not reflecting his own technique of ‘action painting‘, was not quite surreal and not quite strictly abstract (Friedman 64). In 1947 Pollock spread a canvas on the floor of his studio and began to create “energy and motion made visible” (Greenberg, Jordan, and Parker 29). The work was revolutionary and turned the New York art world upside down when in 1948 the paintings made their debut.

Reviewers either called the work genius or felt that the work was nothing more than