Abstraction - a Study of Jackson Pollock's Work

Abstraction: A study of Jackson Pollock's work.

The key to abstract art is to start with one thing, and to end up without it in the picture, but with its 'essence' still present. This explains the paintings and sculptures created in an abstract style that describe something without necessarily retaining definition. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were numerous influences on the break out of abstraction in art. Christianity was being questioned, with the Darwinian theory of evolution and Nietzsche's doctrine of the will pushing the boundaries of society by favoring an anti religious way of life. Simultaneously, questions were being asked in the world of human and natural sciences, such as Einstein's theory of relativity. These challenges of the 'norm', Abstraction: A study of Jackson Pollock's work.

The key to abstract art is to start with one thing, and to end up without it in the picture, but with its 'essence' still present. This explains the paintings and sculptures created in an abstract style that describe something without necessarily retaining definition. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were numerous influences on the break out of abstraction in art. Christianity was being questioned, with the Darwinian theory of evolution and Nietzsche's doctrine of the will pushing the boundaries of society by favoring an anti religious way of life. Simultaneously, questions were being asked in the world of human and natural sciences, such as Einstein's theory of relativity. These challenges of the 'norm', paired with the rapid world-wide industrialization and growth of capitalism spurred on an individuality and recklessness in artists around the world, which stimulated the invention of abstraction. As patronage from the church was diminished, and private commissions from the public were becoming popular in the art world, artists were able to begin earning a livelihood from their art alone, without the boundaries and constraints of the church. Many art movements are considered to have inspired and become a part of abstraction itself, such as expressionism, which dealt with the artist's emotions being recreated in their art, and Fauvism, expressed as a delight in colour, leaving the subject matter second to the colour and vibrancy of the art. These are both examples of early 20th century art movements challenging what they think art should be. Abstraction was about making content-less art that put other elements such as the subconscious and colour ahead of visual definition, and finding new ways of painting, appropriate for the new shape of society that was coming about in the 1900's.

The Nazi's rise to power in the 1930's brought many European artists to the United States. By the early 1940s, the main movements in modern art, expressionism, and abstraction were represented in New York. The rich cultural influences from Europe began to integrate with the American art movement, as American artists learnt from and built upon the European conceptions of modern art. This brought about a second generation of abstraction, expressed with freedom and assertion, with a new, loose style of painting that seemed anarchic and uncontrolled. Jackson Pollock, who led this revolutionary style which became known as abstract expressionism, worked with a component of chance and unpredictability without losing an element of careful control. His famous abstract art became known as 'action painting' capturing one moment in time, with layered, chaotic paint being thrown at the canvas showing a gap between his mind and the work, capturing the energy and freeness of his subconscious.

Jackson Pollock was born in Wyoming