Abstract Painting

One type of artwork I feel that I must talk about is abstract art – or more specifically, Abstract Expressionism. It feels like whichever art museum I go to, there is always a section of the museum that is dedicated to the abstract. There, you can find the canvases that contain random shapes in a random order or a canvas that is composed of solely one color. And it’s also where you can find the canvases that are filled with drips of paint splattered here and there. For this blog, I decided to look at a painting made by the famous Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock, a man who revolutionized what painting meant. If you take a look below, the painting that is shown is called Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist). It’s a 221 x 300 cm canvas that features the drip style of art. Supposedly, the inspiration to creating such a painting came from the Accabonac Creek in Long Island. When creating this, Pollock had taped the canvases onto the floor of a barn and splattered house paint onto the canvases. According to museums, through the flicking of Pollock’s wrists and unrestrained movement, the splatters on the canvas have an “all-over” style that doesn’t give the viewer a certain place to focus their attention. Instead, the whole painting is important.

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When I first saw this painting, I wasn’t sure what to think. For me personally, I prefer to have the theme or motive of the artwork to be obvious and easy to find. However, with this painting, it’s much harder, if not impossible, to understand what the painting is about. There was no focus point – everything seems to be very similar. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to get from the painting. Other questions rose up as well. Why did Pollock call his painting Number 1, 1950? Was it a date of when he painted this? Was “Number 1” supposed to signify his first drip style painting? Why was it also termed “Lavender Mist” when where wasn’t any Lavender paint used? All I saw was black, white, blue, and silver. What about the word “mist”? What did each strand of paint mean? Why was the black paint usually in thicker bands than other colored paint? What is the correct way of viewing the painting? There were just so many questions that I had about the painting. When I saw painting, I was reminded of a book I read one time, where one of the characters uses his hamster to win first prize at an art show. He dips its paws in paint and lets it scurry around on a piece of paper. Then, he cuts off the corner of the paper that looked the messiest and submits it to the art show. I’m pretty sure that Jackson Pollock was famous for a reason. And I’m pretty sure that anyone or anything can create a famous painting. So I wonder – what am I not seeing in this painting? Is there something that is hidden within the splatters of paint?

 

Resources:

“Active Expression.” Head for Art RSS. Head for Art, 8 Mar. 2010. Web. 16 Mar. 2015.

“Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist).” Explore This Work. National Gallery of Art, 2014. Web. 16 Mar. 2015.

One thought on “Abstract Painting

  1. Kavya Vaseekaran

    Abstract art will always be somewhat of a mystery to me. Similar to you, I prefer the theme or motive of a piece of artwork to be easy to spot, but abstract art will always hold a special place in my heart. When looking at this piece at first glance, all I see is sloppy splatters of black, white, silver, and light pink paint- nothing too significant. After further examination, I think the piece represents the artist in some way. I don’t know much about Pollock, but I feel that the chaotic explosion of paints dispersed throughout the painting could possibly correlate to a chaotic or crazy personality. Furthermore, the colors that were used in the painting along with the layout of the paint strokes creates an atmospheric effect, which I find really interesting!

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