Jackson Pollock's Influence On The Art World

Kandinsky painted in an expressive style in the early 20th century and Jackson Pollock was an abstract expressionist in the mid 20th century in the USA. During this time period society was going through great social and technological change due to two world wars and the development of technology and automation. Thus introducing the idea of the Modern world and the philosophies of Modernism into the art world. This affected the art world as it shaped the ideas, attitudes and practices of artists by encouraging freedom of expression in their practice. This was highly influenced by the invention of the camera which saw the demise of realist painting and interest in abstraction for painters and other artists. They wanted to explore the limits of
An example of this is “Blue Poles” (as seen in image one) as it has vibrant and energetic colours splashed onto a canvas. Its size draws the viewer in to marvel at the chaotic layers of paint that show no signs of brush marks. The paint has been thrown randomly onto the canvas, not applied carefully with a brush. There’s dripped lines of light blue paint, red, green, silver. And there are eight blue pole-like lines down the canvas, at different angles to each other the artwork giving it an intertwined feeling. Pollock breaks these boundaries of art making through an innovative application of paint to the canvas and his overall approach to material practice in painting. This innovative material practice’s consist of non reality and abstraction, large scale painting and Pollock’s use of technique have all contributed to Avant Gard approach to the art making practice. The chaotic line work and the textured layering of paint is apparent in the artwork “Blue Poles” as it demonstrates Pollock’s material approach to his art works. Pollock would often use his whole body in a broad gestural movement splash, fling, drip and smear the paint freely onto the surface of his canvas. Pollock would always work above the canvas in open spaces as it gave him space to freely move around. His canvas which would always be placed on the floor as he used saturated colours directly from the the can as he poured, speared and dragged the paint all around. He did this in such a way that no implement or brush actually touched the surface of the canvas, but rather painted into the air and letting the viscosity of the paint freely layer down onto the canvas from an immense height. This form of painting was later given the name of “action painting” and Abstract Expressionism by Clement Greenberg. Greenberg was an art critic who supported the innovative and unorthodox ways