Jackson Pollock - Still Capturing the Vibes of our Modern Days

This Pollock's piece "One" is called "a landmark of Abstract Expressionism".  His paintings in this series (shown below) epitomize my feeling expressed earlier about modern art resonating the vibes of our modern-day societies... nervous, chaotic turbulence tied together with ever thining web of old-world orders (honor, courage, integrity, family value, etc.)... The description found in museum's publication is so eloquent that I would like to quote here.

"One is a masterpiece of the "drip," or pouring, technique, the radical method that Pollock contributed to Abstract Expressionism. Moving around an expanse of canvas laid on the floor, Pollock would fling and pour ropes of paint across the surface. One is among the largest of his works that bear evidence of these dynamic gestures. The canvas pulses with energy: strings and skeins of enamel, some matte, some glossy, weave and run, an intricate web of tans, blues, and grays lashed through with black and white. The way the paint lies on the canvas can suggest speed and force, and the image as a whole is dense and lush—yet its details have a lacelike filigree, a delicacy, a lyricism.

The Surrealists' embrace of accident as a way to bypass the conscious mind sparked Pollock's experiments with the chance effects of gravity and momentum on falling paint. Yet although works like One have neither a single point of focus nor any obvious repetition or pattern, they sustain a sense of underlying order. This and the physicality of Pollock's method have led to comparisons of his process with choreography, as if the works were the traces of a dance. Some see in paintings like One the nervous intensity of the modern city, others the primal rhythms of nature."

Top: Jackson Pollock. (American, 1912-1956). One: Number 31, 1950. 1950. Oil and enamel on unprimed canvas, 8' 10" x 17' 5 5/8" (269.5 x 530.8 cm).

Left: Jackson Pollock. (American, 1912-1956). Full Fathom Five. 1947. Oil on canvas with nails, tacks, buttons, key, coins, cigarettes, matches, etc., 50 7/8 x 30 1/8" (129.2 x 76.5 cm).

The other observation I made is that science principles and discoveries have played certain underlying role in the Artists' mind when coming up with their art.  Like mentioned here "Gravity" (Einstein, Quantum Physics, Theory of Relativity, etc. come up often in others' work, especially in the exhibition I saw later at the Guggenheim Museum).

Learn More about Jackson Pollock.