Jackson Pollock

The group of artists who are considered Abstract Expressionists includes Barnett Newman with his existential zips, Willem de Kooning, famous for his travestied women, Helen Frankenthaler, who created soak-stains, and others. But perhaps the most famous, influential, and head-scratching one was Jackson Pollock. Most of his paintings are immediately recognizable. They feature tangled messes of lines of paint bouncing around in every direction on the canvas. And sure, these fields of chaos are big and impressive, but what's so great about them? Didn't he just drip the paint at random? Can't anyone do that? Well, the answer to these questions is both yes and no. While Pollock implemented a technique anyone is technically capable of regardless of artistic training, only he could have made his paintings. This paradox relates to his work's roots in the Surrealist automatic drawings of André Masson and others. These Surrealists supposedly drew directly from the unconscious to reveal truths hidden within their minds. Occasionally, instead of picturing something and then drawing it, they let their hands move automatically and would later tease out familiar figures that appeared in the scribbles.