Pollock to me and Tolstoy

Pollock to me

There is no other artist that I know of who is more aggravating for understand in the sense of art and artistic expression that Jackson Pollock. Pollock's later work as we know focused around the use of splatter paint instead of the more traditionally viewed art that uses more conventional images and scenes. And that is exactly where Pollack got his fame. Unlike others that may not have considered his art to have merit, because, well hell, a three year old could make something comparable, Pollock did and inadvertently created a market for something new. His art is simply fluid motion captured through different colors and layering effects on a canvas. For me, he work is definitely pretty. But I wonder how much of that sense of beauty is universal or if it is something that I have been conditioned to have being raised in an artistic family and having know Pollock's work since I was little. I honestly feel, that if I was looking at Pollock works for the first time, as if I had lived in a vacuum to Pollock criticism until just now, I would have two reactions. The first would be to say "wow, wonder how long that took?" Implying that in that painting there is some sort of a lack of skill. The second reaction would be to notice the efficiency of the paint flings, the order in the chaos that was his splatter paint and I would begin to understand the work more. Like that forger was implying, we could all put on our crummy shoes, lay a canvas on the floor and start painting like Pollock did, but we would not be able to capture the movement and the feeling that his paintings have. Maybe if we had studies Pollock's work for years we would begin to have a sense of the kind of "strokes" that he didn't and didn't do, but even then those rules are probably completely variable considering how he had chosen to paint.

When one attempts to analyzes a work by Pollock, it is hard to even know where to begin. So in this case lets see what Tolstoy would have thought of Pollock's work. Tolstoy defined art as needing three things, Art must possess some feeing of the artistic behind it, the feeling which it is trying to transmit must be clear and the artist must be sincere in the message they are trying to convey. Thus, under this art criticism would Tolstoy consider Pollocks' work to be art. I personally don't think he would. Sure Pollock most likely had some individual feeling, following along with Tolstoy, and there the parallels fall apart. Was their a feeling that Pollock was trying to convey in his work entitled "Number1" ? I have no idea, It evokes emotion and feelings within me but were those the messages he wanted. Furthermore, if we can not identify which emotion the art is trying to convey how can we know if the artist was sincere in trying to convey that emotion? Thus, I would say that Pollock's works fail under Tolstoy's art criticism.

Tolstoy and Nietzsche

Tolstoy and Nietzsche

Faking It.

Kinkade and the Old Masters