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History has seen many eccentric artists like Salvador Dali and Man Ray. They were different from the rest and their art was also particularly different from others. Jackson Pollock was such artist. Though, he wasn’t known for his person traits as his behavior was normal. But, his popularity was due to his new type of unusual abstract paintings.
Pollock was known for using unconventional tools for painting. He would mostly use anything lying around him. Trowels, sticks and knives were his main tools in many of his paintings. He called such use as “a natural growth out of a need”.
The reason was simple. He didn’t need the conventional brushes or easels for his newly invented unique style of Drip Painting.
He would just lay the canvas on the ground and start dripping the thick oil paint with one of the aforementioned tools. For different dripping styles, thickness of lines and length, he would use different tools. Conventional tools weren’t prohibited though. But, unconventional tools were the necessary expansion for his unique style. Maybe he wouldn’t have been able to make his most popular paintings without the new tools he brought into the paintings world. It was totally new at his time. No one had done this before at this scale and as a main stream style of art. That bold attitude could have been one reason that people liked his art. Because it was refreshing, breaking the rules of the conventional styles and totally new and also enjoyable if viewed with certain open mindset.
The reason was simple. He didn’t need the conventional brushes or easels for his newly invented unique style of Drip Painting.
He would just lay the canvas on the ground and start dripping the thick oil paint with one of the aforementioned tools. For different dripping styles, thickness of lines and length, he would use different tools. Conventional tools weren’t prohibited though. But, unconventional tools were the necessary expansion for his unique style. Maybe he wouldn’t have been able to make his most popular paintings without the new tools he brought into the paintings world. It was totally new at his time. No one had done this before at this scale and as a main stream style of art. That bold attitude could have been one reason that people liked his art. Because it was refreshing, breaking the rules of the conventional styles and totally new and also enjoyable if viewed with certain open mindset.
He was inspired to draw in such way due to his observation of Indian Sandpainting, which is drawn on the grown with colors. He liked that way and said, “I feel nearer, more part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting.”
Though, scientists and even mathematicians have immersed their heads into Jack the Dripper’s (as Time magazine once called him) work’s popularity. Their conclusion was the scientific phenomena called Fractal.
Fractals are the shapes and designs found in nature that have almost similar design pattern on any scale. Zoom in or zoom out in the design, you would find a similarity between both scales.
On the left is a simple, basic example of a Fractal design (click to enlarge). There are many pyramids standing on each other and ultimately making one giant pyramid. Now, you can pick any one of the small pyramid and compare it to the large one, they both are the almost same in the design and pattern. That kind of similarity is called Fractal.
In Jackson Pollock’s Drip Paintings, scientists find the same pattern of Fractal designs. You can cut out any part of the painting and compare it to other part, you find it almost similar and would recognize as two different pieces of one big painting.
Scientists say that such Fractal paintings are naturally likable and that’s the reason people like Jackson Pollock’s paintings.
Good theory. Though, what about some message which every artist tries to convey through his art? Like many other arts, Pollock’s’ art pieces are more about enjoying than understanding, despite the attempts of critics and scientists to denounce, appraise or explain it with different theories.
