Artist: Jackson Pollock Created: 1946

Composition

In the mid 1940’s, Jackson Pollock created a turbulent yet elegant abstract painting named Composition. This artist brought abstract expressionism to a new level with his forceful and boldly dramatic style. Pollock was established as a highly influential artist at that time and until this day.

Pollock developed a new technique that he used in his creations: drip painting. This technique was used in his painting Composition. It consisted of letting color drip or run in long strings of pigment from a suspended brush above the huge canvas, allowing drips and spatters. In his canvas, Pollock used blue, red, and black splashes to occupy it, as well as broad brushstrokes of black and red on the right side of the painting.

The lines and forms are chaotic and unorderly. The orientation of the picture remained uncertain until after it had been completed. He claimed that by putting large, unstretched canvases on the floor of his studio rather than on the easel, he could walk around the image, working on it from all four sides to get into his paintings even more. For this method he claimed descent from the Indian sand painters of the west, spontaneous drawing from the unconscious was to be the result.

The artist became a lonely, heroic individual inventing a new vision in the tradition of the European avant-garde.

Pollock’s drip paintings, which among them included Composition, provoked outrage and notoriety when they were first displayed but some praised them as energetic and bold. Pollock was even dubbed by some critics as “Jack the Dripper”.

Privacy policy | Contact us