Image Courtesy of MoMA
Jackson Pollock, One: Number 31
Art can come in an infinite number of forms. We see those forms in many aspects of human life. Almost all artwork is able to captivate a particular feeling inside of us that draws us into the art. Art is something that we look at to see not only the mind of the artist, but how other people view and feel about the artist’s work. In my time of looking at art, I have seen so many incredible creations made from artists all across the world. All of them are unique and possessing their own artistic style. Recently, there is one piece of artwork that piqued my interest when I first saw it. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I saw piece by an artist named Jackson Pollock. Titled One: Number 31, 1950. In my mind this painting stands apart from every other painting I've seen. The paintings I am accustomed to seeing are usually of objects, people, or places of nature or fantasy. This painting was none of that, just splatters of three colors of a massive canvas. It was different, but a good kind of different.
In this piece by Jackson Pollock, there are a lot of things going on. First is the scale of the painting. Most paintings I've seen take up a small part of a wall; this painting stretches the entire length of the wall it is hung on. It is definitely one of the bigger paintings I have seen. Next is the colors; many paintings that I have seen use a plethora of colors to capture your attention. This painting only uses three colors; black, white, and a dark green color as well. They are all splattered about the canvas, just a bunch of drips and splatters all around the canvas, with no sense of order or purpose. It looks as if a child could make something like it. When you get up close you can see that the black is like an inky jet black, the white looks as if it was ripped from the clouds, and the green looks like a dark granny smith apple. All these colors manage to work in harmony to create a much bigger picture. The colors are all layered on the canvas so that one doesn't wash out another. It all manages to flow into one giant splatfest. Looking at it, it gives me the feeling that this wasn't created for a single meaning, but a multitude of meanings. These meanings could all change depending on the person's view.
Jackson Pollock was an American born artist who developed artwork devoted to abstract expressionism. Abstract expressionism became a wildly popular art movement in America during the post-World War two era. Artists such as Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Pousette-Dart, and countless others all developed art that had multiple meanings and changed the art world by introducing new art forms like Jackson Pollock's splatter paintings. He had a method called the “drip” method in order to make his paintings. He would lay down multiple layers of canvas on a floor, then walk around the canvas and start dripping the paint onto it. His way of painting was also influenced by “action painting.” This form of painting often emphasizes the physical act of painting, an essential aspect of the finished work of the artist.
Looking at the painting, the meaning that I drew from it is that it represents humanity. The spatters are all spread out and mixed; it's not just one thing. There are also no similarities in splatters throughout the painting. I tied that to how every human is different in mindset and has different traits to make individuals unique to themselves. The scale of the painting can also be how big the human race is now and how much it has grown. Since everything is mixed, I thought of it as everyone having to work together regardless of color. The canvas represents mother earth, and every viewer is a god staring down at humanity. That's the way that I interpret the painting. Although that’s what I may see, everyone else's view will be different from mine. That’s one of the benefits of abstract expressionist work; you can see the near infinite ideas of a meaning from anyone.
I'm glad I got to see a piece of artwork as unique as the one Jackson Pollock created. It took me a while to find a piece of artwork that really spoke out to me. Although I managed to go to new places, not many pieces of artwork were really speaking to me. When I saw this piece at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I knew that I finally found something that I could say was truly my favorite thing. Though I am still young and haven't seen all the artwork that lies out in the world, I've definitely found something that I will remember for a very long time. Seeing something like that really showed me that art can be anything that you want it to be.
Joshua Gonzalez