The Subversion of Gravity in Jackson Pollock's Abstractions Author(s): Claude Cernuschi and Andrzej Herczynski Source: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 90, No. 4 (Dec., 2008), pp. 616-639 Published by: College Art Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20619641 . Accessed: 09/04/2013 12:53

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This content downloaded from 199.79.254.152 on Tue, 9 Apr 2013 12:53:19 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Subversion of Gravity in Jackson Pollock's Abstractions

Claude Cernuschi and AndrzejHerczynski

While implementing the Surrealist directive of eliciting the proved ideal for Pollock's deployment of the poured tech and intent on an unconscious, generating extensive vocabu nique allowing formaximum control and making the paint of lary unbroken, free-flowing lines, Jackson Pollock felt his accelerate directly toward the canvas in the shortest possible ambitions frustrated two to conven by constraints endemic time.5Nonetheless, itwill be proposed here that the effects of tional easel painting: the interruption of the creative act rhythmic energy for which the artist is best known are, per to on canvas caused by the inconvenient need reload the brush and the force, contingent the vertical reorientation of the on as he canvas on the wall for drag his hand spread pigment along the contemplation. surface. Initially, Pollock tried to circumvent these impedi On its face, this claim should hardly be controversial. As ments by squeezing paint directly from the tube. This adjust Leo Steinberg already stressed, Pollock intended all of his to amounts ment allowed him dispense larger of pigment abstractions to be exhibited vertically.6 As early as 1962, he than could otherwise be held on and eliminated the neces reasoned that Pollock sity to reload the brush. But forcing paint out of the tube while simultaneously ensuring that it is applied with elan is a indeed poured and dripped his pigment upon canvas laid tricky proposition; so is avoiding the increased friction on the ground, but thiswas an expedient. After the first caused by the tube's rubbing against the canvas. To extend color skeins had down, he would tack the canvas on the duration of his and enhance the of his gone gestures fluidity to a wall to he to to see get acquainted with it, used say, strokes, Pollock needed a practical way of carrying more where itwanted to go. He lived with the painting in its pigment and dispensing itwithout touching the image.When upright state, as with a world confronting itshuman pos Paul Brach asked him why he started pouring, Pollock re ture.7 plied, "Someone tried to talkme into using a dagger striper but the sucker didn't hold the paint long enough. I just wanted a line. ... I wanted to it As is More T. longer keep going."1 recently, J. Clark observed that although the "picture ... well known, he achieved both objectives by laying the canvas was put on the floor to be worked on itwas always being on the floor (Fig. 1). Retaining more paint on sticks and read on the floor as if itwere upright, or in the knowledge trowels, he worked with fewer interruptions, and pouring that it would be. To pretend otherwise would have been in the air as a and Pollock was never naive about pigment effectively enlisting gravity partici naive, painting."8 pant in the process he eliminated the deleterious effects of These observations touch on a key feature of the poured friction altogether. Not surprisingly, critics have counted the technique; even so, critical aspects of the artist's dyadic pro cess have remained If Krauss focused almost implementation of the poured technique and the reorienta unexplored. as on Pollock's of as if tion of artistic activity from the wall to the floor Pollock's exclusively point departure painting most original and influential contributions to the history of horizontally were an end in itself Steinberg and Clark art. of stopped short elucidating how central Pollock's reorienta tion of the canvas proved to his mode of operation. To be The Question of Orientation sure, their description of the artist's method as unitary and Informed by the ideas of Sigmund Freud and Georges Ba cohesive is apt, ifonly because there isnothing to suggest that taille, Rosalind Krauss struck a different chord. In her view, Pollock even considered exhibiting his works on the floor of as a medium" at an at Pollock's deployment "horizontality repre angle whereby paintings (especially those the upper sented a radical regression from the intellectual, disembod end of his dimensional range) are particularly awkward to ied, optical way of perceiving the world that stems from observe. But although laying the canvas horizontally was max humanity's erect (vertical) posture. By stressing the horizon imally convenient for pouring, the artist, as Steinberg indi as to fore often creative in order to tal opposed the vertical, Pollock, she argued, cated, interrupted activity reposi the even characteristics of urina for on the wall. grounded corporeal, abject, tion his work study and ultimately display tion and defecation, an implication of the poured technique These two integral, yet separate actions each played their own maintained in, say,Andy Warhol's later Oxidation Paintings indispensable role. Even if physically produced in the first was as after the and Linda Benglis's sculptures.2 state, the work only recognized "complete" not crux a to a sailboat or By itself, though, "horizontality" does capture the second, process comparable constructing as in one it serves its of Pollock's contribution. The artist conceded much him aircraft: though assembled environment, con self.When asked about painting on the floor, he replied, purpose only in another. Pollock's shift in orientation "That's not unusual. The Orientals did that."3This remark is stituted no less of a sine qua non. And it is by recognizing the some perfectly apposite; laying the canvas horizontally, after all, essential contributions of both steps that of the subtle a man and broader of Pollock's hardly precludes dispensing pigment in traditional intricacies, implications, procedure canvas relief. ner.4 No doubt, the horizontal orientation of the may emerge in sharper

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1 Hans Namuth, PollockPainting, 1950 (artwork Hans Namuth Estate; photograph provided by the Center forCreative Photography, University of Arizona

or Two Three Dimensions? does not make contact with the support, nothing comes to full To have the act of Appreciating the ramifications of Pollock's manipulation pass. any consequences, therefore, paint of the canvas's orientation from the a closer on on requires, outset, ing is dependent what transpires the two-dimensional investigation of his creative process and, more to the point, its surface of the picture plane. Though most painters may not on reliance gravity. Pouring, after all, is impossible without have felt constrained by this exigency, Pollock sought and an gravitational force. Had Pollock lived in environment devised an alternative through which he severed his depen were neu on as a trans where the effects of the Earth's gravitational field dence that physical connection and, result, tralized on the international for exam a space station, formed painting into truly three-dimensional process.11 he could have not These technical came at a ple9 probably painted but poured. innovations, however, price. Choosing pouring as the principal means of dispensing pig Expanding his activity into three-dimensional space, Pollock ment, in turn, had a major consequence for his modus ope forfeited the luxury of being able to suspend his process at it from a two- to a three-dimen no randi, namely, transforming will. Actively working in the air, he could longer interrupt sional affair. Pollock's of are no less his as a once abstractions, course, movements, especially gesture, initiated, would two dimensional than easel on canvas as as re "conventionally" paintings, and, keep releasing pigment the long any no matter on was their practice, painters obviously work by moving mained the implement he wielding.12 The streams of in three-dimensional space. Yet, whereas previous artists had paint already in flight, furthermore, would instantly lie be no to was to the bounds of the artist's control save measures choice but touch their piece, Pollock free paint yond for in the air, allowing his gestures to range in three dimensions, oudandish (such as yanking the canvas out from under the as to rise and fall, as well span from side to side, all without pigment already airborne). Yet the artist managed to turn making direct physical contact with the canvas. In traditional this situation to his advantage. Since his gestures were per easel or mural painting, no sooner is the brush lifted from formed in the air, the painting underneath him simulta or the cloth wall discounting, for the sake of argument, the neously recorded both where and with what velocityhe moved exception of an artist flinging or spraying paint at an upright his implement, including the most subde inflections and surface10 than the creative act is (provisionally perhaps, but tremors of his hand and wrist. Consequendy, the poured indisputably) suspended. No matter what artists do or how trajectories qualify as doubly indexical and, as such, provide they contemplate their next course of action, if their brush the spectator with nearly unprecedented access into the art

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2 Jackson Pollock, Number 23, 1948, enamel on cardboard, 225/sX 30% in. (57.5 X 78.5 cm). T teGallery, London (artwork Pollock-Krasner Foundation/Artists Rights Society; photograph T teGallery London, provided by Art Resource, NY)

ana ist'sworking methods (Fig. 2). Indeed, by choosing a tech very likely that Pollock appropriated this inclination to nique inwhich the canvas registers the slightest change of his lyze formal relations empathetically from his teacher, a motion in space, Pollock encourages the viewer to construe Thomas Hart Benton. Despite endorsing representational a his paintings as effects, the causes of which the audience is idiom, Benton made rhythmic energy and bodily dynamics meant to own infer. As Frank O'Hara incisively noted, whenever hallmark of both his compositional style and teaching or we assume The effectiveness of a work of he Pollockian lines thin thicken, automatically that agenda. art, maintained, the artist accelerated or As a re on the kinds of the formal decelerated, respectively.13 depended physical responses sult,we tend instinctively to re-create the very act of painting patterns in a painting would elicit from the audience. "Forms our en in Benton in imagination and experience sensations of kinetic plastic construction," wrote, ergy akin to watching a dancer in motion or a conductor an ... are taken from common re-combined and leading orchestra. experience, construe art re-oriented. This re-orientation follows lines of That Pollock hoped his audience would his in preference this manner can be deduced from his own proclivity to also having definite biological origin. Stability, equilib manner. construe all works of art in this B. H. Friedman, rium, connection, sequence movement, rhythm symboliz are . .. Pollock's firstbiographer, recalled the artist's somewhat un ing the flux and flow of energy [the] main factors. own orthodox responses to paintings in the writer's possession: In the "feel" of our bodies, in the sight of bodies of Pollock "stood in front of theMondrian with hands out as if others, in the bodies of animals, in the shape of growing he was about to seize and fight it.His hands twitched in the and moving things, in the forces of nature and in the to want to touch or feel or somehow of man the of movement and air, seeming reproduce, engines rhythmic principle . . . remake, each element of the work before him."14 Coming counter-movement is made manifest. This mechanical . .. we can across a piece by Arshile Gorky, Pollock "Again assumed principle which share with all life be abstracted and something like a fighting stance, his hands moving in the air, used in constructing and analyzing things which also in tracing the configuration of the painting."15 It is, of course, theirway have life and reality.16

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Benton's in were inflected those to a wide of aesthetics, turn, strongly by managed generate remarkably range viscosities of a in to and densities and as much of that as John Dewey, philosopher who argued that, order exploit range necessary a appreciate work of art, to obtain the effects desired. All the while, Pollock's process included dripping as well as a beholder must create his own And his cre experience. pouring. Though both terms are used, often interchangeably, ation must include relations to those which comparable to refer to his technique, it should be emphasized that the the underwent. are not the same original producer They dominant effect throughout his mature production is the in literal sense. But with the as with the any perceiver, sweep of continuous lines, not the pointillism of individual there must be an of the elements of the artist, ordering droplets. Since the former is the result of pouring and the whole that is in not in the same as form, although details, latter of dripping, the distinction differentiates two physical the of the creator of the work con process organization aspects of Pollock's practice; whereas to drip means "to let fall Without an act of recreation the in an to means sciously experienced. drops," intermittent process, pour "to cause to is not as a work of art.17 a object perceived flow in stream,"24 a continuous process (hardly an insignif icant distinction, if one thinks of a leaky versus an open Pollock's kinesthetic reactions to the in Friedman's paintings faucet). To keep all options open, Pollock purposely adjusted collection evidence of his yield compelling thinking along the physical properties of his paint, making it adequately similar lines. the of his Amplifying very physicality process, viscous and transportable in sufficient quantities on his im the indexical character of his is suited to technique ideally plement. Once his paint fellwithin theworkable range, pour the a that trigger spectator's empathetic response, response ing or dripping ensued, depending on the amount Pollock involve an intuitive of the artist's based on may retracing gestures carried his stick or trowel and on the velocity with which on the marks left on the canvas. But because the skeins of he released it. To pour, he would increase the amount or constitute paint only two-dimensional of move at a slower to he amount representations pace; drip, would decrease the three-dimensional Pollock's vertical movements trajectories, or move at a faster the two pace.25 Occasionally, processes are harder to from the appearance of his work than followed one another or even decipher alternated, obscuring the dis his horizontal (side-to-side) movements which, as a result, tinction between them. All the same, although discrete drop are more and most reenacted.18 In consequential readily lets routinely appear in themajority of Pollock's abstractions deed, if Pollock's hands moved and predominantly "up from 1947 to 1950, their visual impact is subordinate to that down," the would or "cluster," pigment "pile up" impeding of the linear tracks of paint. Of the two processes, therefore, the to infer the that caused them. spectator's ability gestures itwas pouring rather than dripping that endowed Pollock's stains or are Although puddles frequently visible, it is the abstractions with their distinctive character. linear tracks that most evoke re effectively sympathetic By fine-tuning the physical qualities of his paint as well as sponses from the viewer, the more so because were they controlling the process of dispensing it, Pollock not only in the air.19 It is in the fullness of poured freely by working made his particular way of pouring possible, he also pro three-dimensional space, therefore, rather than within the duced some of the most vivid evocations of motion in the confines of a two-dimensional that Pollock surface, invested, history of painting. For obvious reasons, the indication of as much as his medium allowed, in what E. H. painter's movement has always posed a daunting challenge to artists, Gombrich termed "the beholder's share."20 astutely painters and sculptors alike, constrained to work within the a confines of static idiom.26 Even if a particular posture and Motion on a Deformability appears dynamic canvas, spectator may always question Pollock's mode of was on was execution, however, contingent whether the figure caught in themiddle of an action or materials malleable and to using sufficiently pliable be de simply portrayed striking a pose while at rest (Fig. 3). Since in an ployed space. To pour effectively and enlist gravity as the same ambiguity pertains to inanimate motion, artists Pollock must have thematerial "accomplice," adjusted prop largely avoided representing objects in the course of falling erties of his to obtain suitable pigment density (thickness) (think of the altogether unconvincing suggestion of a drop and If the ran water viscosity (self-adhesiveness). paint like (a ping knife inRembrandt's Sacrificeof Isaac) P To deflect their of low itwould be to liquid comparatively viscosity), difficult audience's skepticism, artists often depicted active figures control with the kinds of implements Pollock employed, adorned with flowing drapery, material whose pliancy, unlike producing excessive splashing and puddling rather than the rigid garments, accentuated the illusion of motion. In fact, distinctive linear effects for which Pollock is best known. Pollock himself practiced this very strategy in his numerous if the like un Conversely, paint behaved putty (a liquid of early copies after the old masters (Fig. 4). it usually high viscosity), would lack the necessary malleabil Rapid sketches, especially if loose and spontaneous, can in rather than on the also a ity,dropping lumps pouring smoothly achieve persuasive effect of motion (Fig. 5). But al cloth.21 viscous to unprimed By fashioning paint enough though incomplete contours, swifthatchings, and multiple deformable to Pollock at a were control, yet enough dispense easily, attempts resolving specific form perfectly acceptable a median two sought between these extremes. "Most of the in preliminary drawings, no such license existed within the I he "is a kind of He paint use," said, liquid, flowing paint."22 conventions of academic painting. As looser modes of paint chose as primarily enamel, "thinned," Lee Krasner, the art erly execution gained acceptance, Diego Velazquez, for one, ist's "to the wife, recalled, point he wanted it."23Yet this ventured to devise a markedly successful solution to the did not curtail Pollock's in the least. a "compromise" creativity problem by having the spokes of spinning wheel nearly Even within the dictated his parameters by practical needs, he "disappear" in Las hilanderas (Fig. 6). In the modern era,

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3 Henry Raeburn, The Skater, 1795, oil on canvas, 30 X 25 in. X 63.5 The National of Edin-. (76.2 cm). Gallery Scotland, 4 Pollock, Untitled,CR3: 440r, late 1937-39, pencil and col in the The burgh (artwork public domain; photograph ored pencil on paper, 16% X 13% in. (42.8 X 35.2 cm). The National of New Gallery Scotland) Metropolitan Museum of Art, York, Purchase, Anonymous Gift, 1990 (artwork Pollock-Krasner Foundation/Artists Rights Society [ARS], New York; photograph The Metro politan Museum of Art) and "air devices invented by cartoonists illustrators, streaks," "motion lines," and "zip ribbons,"28 provided another ap proach, one so simple as to be readily intelligible to small children (Fig. 7), yet one that lay beyond the purview of a academic artists double standard eventually circumvented in circles. The Italian for avant-garde Futurists, example, covetous of the ease and efficacy with which cartoonists pulled off the illusion of speed, blatantly appropriated their conventions (with additional assistance, admittedly, from chronophotography; Fig. 8).29 For his part, Pollock was fully conversant with the effects of as action photography and chronophotography, especially his close friend the Swiss filmmaker and designer Herbert Matter was an accomplished practitioner of the genre.30 By was embracing an abstract idiom, however, Pollock freed 5 Aniello Falcone, Skirmish,17th ink on from having to blur, distort, or multiply his figures. Unlike Cavalry century, pa 4V2 X 7V2 in. X 19 Private collection cannot into per, (11.4 cm). (artwork cartoons, furthermore, his images be parsed in the public domain; photograph by Liliane Fredericks) the versus those elements representing "subject" represent ing "motion." In Herge's drawing of Tin tin chasing a parrot (Fig. 7), one could conceivably remove the air streaks added post facto to convey flight without violating the in tered, the overall structure of Las hilanderas would hardly be were at rest. In tegrityof the human and animal forms in the least. Pollock's undermined if the wheel depicted Pollock's as pictorial language rendered such a separation inconceivable, abstractions, conversely, the dynamic and morphological are of course, precisely because the devices used to suggest dy pects utterly indivisible. namism are somehow embodied in, and thus inextricable This effect is also found in the work of other abstract themselves. To be the same be Franz Frantisek from, the shapes sure, may painters (Wassily Kandinsky, Marc, Kupka, name a were said of the blurred spokes of thewheel painted byVelazquez; just to few), but, since Pollock's skeins of paint nonetheless, although its impact would be significantly al obtained by sweeping lateralmovements, the resulting trajec

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6 Diego Velazquez, Las hilanderas, 1657, oil on canvas, 865/s X 99lA in. (220 X 252 cm). Museo del Prado, Madrid (artwork in the public do main; photograph by Scala, provided byArt Resource, NY)

tories recording the deformations of falling liquid paint as it settled on the canvas evoke dynamism in an especially because flow around obsta convincing way. Indeed, liquids cles or within vessel boundaries, may deform inmotion, lose stability, or break into separate fragments, they are particu larly suitable, even more than pliable drapery, to convey a sense of motion in a static image. As William Ivins Jr. ob served, "The only way that a sense of motion can be given to a body in a still picture is by distortion of its tactile-muscular ... shape. It is this distortion in the picture thatmakes us feel that the [object] ismoving. The more we elongate our rep resentations . .. the faster seems their movement."31 Accord ingly, artists fare much better when attempting to depict liquids rather than solids inmotion. Portrayed in the form of a continuous stream, liquids, after all, are farmore likely to produce a persuasive illusion ofmovement than solids shown, as if in From the laminar frozen, levitating space.32 smooth, flows inJan Vermeer's Milkmaid (ca. 1658-61) or Leonardo's complicated vortical flows (ca. 1513, Fig. 9) toGustave Cour bet's turbulent, chaotic flows (as in The Wave, 1871, National Gallery of Scotland), this tactic has served artists especially well. Pollock went a step further.He did not just paint liquid in motion; he set liquid in motion. Diluting his solution and letting it fall freely under gravity, he enabled its very fluid ity its susceptibility to deform as it accelerated and deceler ated above the canvas to record,not depict, the velocity with 7 Milou et le from Uoreille which he moved.33 In the process, Pollock made his work into Herge, Tintin, perroquet, cassee, Brussels: Casterman, 1945, 5 and an index of actual (instead of an icon of simulated)motion. p. (artwork photograph Herge /Moulinsart) Not surprisingly, he declared that "the more immediate, the more direct" a painting, "the greater the possibilities of mak a a In certain the because neither were his marks mediated ing direct of making statement."34 ways, seismograph. But, translation of Pollock's dynamic gestures onto a static entity is by an electrical apparatus nor his strokes constrained in their not unlike the recording of earthquakes by the needle of a motion (like the tip of the seismograph, oscillating up and

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8 on a on X Giacomo Balla, Dog Leash, 1912, oil canvas, 35% 43V4 in. (90.8 X 110 cm). Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, of A. N.Y., bequest Conger Goodyear and gift of George F. Goodyear, 1964 (artwork Artists Rights Society [ARS], New York; photograph provided by theAlbright-Knox Art Gallery)

down along a single axis35), Pollock's rendition ofmovement, as he himself put it, proves all the more immediate and direct.

Even the claim of re so, "immediacy" and "directness" quires some qualification. The double indexicality of Pol 9 Leonardo da Vinci, Water Obstacles, ca. 1513, lock's process should not engender the view that his tech Study of Passing ink on ll3/4X 8V4 in. x'20.8 Collec is so as to make his a paper, (29.7 cm). Royal nique transparent "reading" paintings tion,Windsor Castle (artwork in the public domain; photo task.36 On the the same com straightforward contrary, very graph The Royal Collection Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth plexities of fluid flow that amplify the illusion of motion may ID actually obscure the precise characteristics and sequence of the artist's At a three gestures. minimum, separate physical mechanisms, each operating at a different scale, impacted his linear trajectories, potentially leading spectators to miscon paper such as TheMask (ca. 1945) and Unfitted (ca. 1944), strue the causes on canvas. precise of the marks left the it is particularly conspicuous in Untitled 1948 (Fig. 10) be The firstmechanism is manifest in the numerous cause were laid on a not one clearly pigments dry, smooth ground, fine oscillations of red enamel in Untitled 1948 (CR3: 786, Fig. made rougher by previous applications of pigment. to 10) .37It is tempting, of course, attribute these undulations Another mechanism that problematizes the reading of Pol to or the trembling, intentional not, of Pollock's hand. Yet it lockian marks operates at larger scales. Since Pollock worked was impossible for the vibrations of Pollock's wrist to have above his canvas on average at about a foot and a half, but produced ripples of such fine scale and consistent regularity occasionally as high as five feet falling paint fragments "re (Fig. II).38 The effect, rather, was almost surely due to the tained thememory" of the horizontal components of the ve stream as fluid instability of the of viscous paint known locitywith which theywere moving at the moment of sepa a common coiling39 phenomenon familiar from the way ration from his trowel. Whenever Pollock's hand accelerated, or honey maple syrup oscillates and coils, even when poured therefore, the fluid already released moved at a different with a to reason steady hand. It thus stands that coiling could velocity than his implement.41 Not only did a lag ensue ensue easily whenever Pollock poured viscous paint. Indeed, between any change in Pollock's motion and the recording of since the thick red lines in Untitled 1948 (Fig. 10) were this change on the surface below, but also the recorded line created with highly viscous enamel and the thinner ones in became distorted as a result the longer the flight, the black with diluted ink, only the former exhibit coiling insta greater the distortion. Accordingly, because fluid parcels bility. The high viscosity of the red compound accounts for move with constant horizontal velocity in the air, rapid flicks the difference: if diluted, the enamel would seep into the of Pollock's wrist may have "translated" into recorded arcs of rather than paper produce the undulating lines visible in the exaggerated radii.42 detail (Fig. 11). It should be iterated, however, that because The thirdmechanism pertains to the expansion and con or skeins of paint distort diffuse upon landing on an uneven traction of Pollock's poured trajectories. As indicated earlier, woven canvases are to similar undu one assumes or a surface, unlikely display readily that the thinning thickening of line lations. Whereas the effect appears in Pollock's work on resulted from the acceleration or deceleration of Pollock's

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10 Pollock, Untitled 1948, CR3: 786, on X ink and enamel paper, 22% 30 in. (56.8 X 76.2 cm). The Metro politan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Lee Krasner Pollock (artwork Pol lock-Krasner Foundation/Artists Rights Society [ARS], New York; pho tograph The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

hand. The artist, though, could easily have produced the effect of changing tempos in a number of different ways: by switching the leading edge of an asymmetrical tool, varying the amount of pigment on his implement, allowing the paint run to out, or, alternatively, rapidly changing the height at which itwould be dispensed. Of these techniques, the latter, no less though effective, was, arguably, the least transparent. Relying on a characteristic of gravitationally driven flows known from streams narrow as everyday experience that they accelerate downward Pollock, by raising or lowering his hand, may have expanded or contracted the flow at its point of contact with the canvas. In thisway, he was capable of creating the remarkably vivid sensations of shiftingvelocity noted by O'Hara, yetwithout accelerating or decelerating the lateral (horizontal) sweep of his arm.48 An examination of the fluid-dynamic aspects of Pollock's process suggests, therefore, that, the artist's reputation for immediacy and directness notwithstanding, his signature ef fects do not always readily betray their causes. While pushing indexicality to the extreme, Pollock may have courted a look of unmitigated spontaneity and improvisation, but, farmore sophisticated a craftsman than even his champions may ap preciate, he managed to enlist and indulge autonomous phys ical all without the de phenomena, relinquishing requisite 11 Detail of Fig. 10 (artwork Pollock-Krasner Foundation/ gree of control. This not a clever means of simply proved Artists Rights Society [ARS], New York; photograph The how his occluding practiced performance actually became, it Metropolitan Museum of Art) was also a way of eliciting his audience's empathetic response while inserting a certain artistic playfulness in a process par over to natural the re-creative is on tially given phenomena. spectator's process contingent reposition ing it on the wall. Demonstrably, Pollock's paintings would Gravity and Its Effects look strikinglydifferent if seen horizontally rather than ver Even if Pollock's employment of fluid dynamics required tically.On the floor, the skeins of paint resemble any liquid delicate on adjustments, his idiom also depended exploiting simply released into space and lying inert on a piece of woven sharply defined polarities. The artist's creativeprocess may fabric (Fig. 1). On the wall, the skeins look unencumbered, have been on the canvas on the contingent laying floor, but "airborne," energetically moving upward, downward, and

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ical gap. Essential not only because gravitywas indispensable to Pollock's process but also because his particular way of de ploying this force ultimately differentiates his own, idiosyn cratic aesthetic strategy from that of other artists who fell within the compass of his influence. Such an interdisciplinary perspective, it is hoped, will speak to the very dilemma in question: specifically, how an artist, renowned for his reliance on gravity, could antithetically employ and elude it at the same time. Pollock did so by reorienting his canvas by 90 degrees, an angle that plays a critical role in mechanics. The laws of a a physics47mandate that small object subject to single force will, at any time, accelerate in exactly the same direction in which the force is applied.48 When the object encounters obstacles or constraints, however, its acceleration may be redirected.49 For the purposes of the argument at hand, it should be emphasized that the acceleration of an object constrained to move on a or a line can occur in plane along any direction exceptat 90 degreesto the applied force.50 Thus, although the paint released from Pollock's trowel will accel (a) (b) (c) erate freely in the vertical direction while in flight, itwill cease to once it on a accelerate altogether lands horizontally an on a cart. 12 Diagrams illustrating external force acting laid canvas. The the cart and the arrow the gray rectangle represents Perhaps another example, though unrelated to Pollock's applied force (the tail end of the arrow is located at the point process, may clarify the particular significance of the 90 of application of the external force) (diagrams by Andrzej Consider an constrained to move in a Herczynski) degree angle. object straight line on a horizontal plane, like a cart rolling on a track (Fig. 12). In order to accelerate the cart forward, push in the direction of the track (from the rear) would be as if somehow freed from friction and liberated ing sideways, most "efficient" Force be exerted at some are (Fig. 12a). may from gravity.44Once the paintings reoriented vertically, oblique angle (from the side), but thiswill noticeably reduce Pollock's marks, though impossible to generate without grav the resultant acceleration (Fig. 12b). The closer the of look, free of its relentless a angle ity, paradoxically enough, grip, the force comes to 90 the less "efficient" the conundrum mentioned in the literature. Pollock applied degrees, barely at to effort, and exactly 90 degrees the tracks, forward accel scholarship, spanning numerous, often mutually exclusive eration ceases For an from fem altogether (Fig. 12c). applied force, positions biographical, formalist, psychoanalytic, then, the is the threshold at and inist, Marxist, to to name some of the 90-degree angle beyond poststructuralist, just no which forward acceleration is longer possible.51 many lenses through which the artist has been viewed has Both are instructive. as the cart accel yet to address this issue on itsown terms.Granted, a detailed examples Just stops erating when pushed perpendicularly to the direction of the investigation of Pollock's use of gravitymay lie beyond the tracks on which itmoves, so was force "neutral ideological purview or stated objectives of some of these gravitational ized" Pollock's onto a interpretative approaches, and, as already indicated at the by pouring horizontally positioned canvas. In fact, on the floor, with the canvas outset, a number of scholars have already tackled the impli by painting to and then it on the wall, cations of Pollock's change of orientation.45 But even those perpendicular gravity, exhibiting to Pollock, in both instances, reoriented his who mentioned the complexity of the artist's idiomatic reli parallel gravity, work 90 ance on gravitational force did so without acknowledging the by exactly degrees. Pollock "curtailed" the effects of determinative role itplays both in his mode of working and Initially, gravity physically the canvas at 90 to its vertical in guiding the spectator's response. Admittedly, Elizabeth by placing precisely degrees This is not to that force could ever Frank has noted that by "placing the canvas on the floor pull. say gravitational be "turned off' Pollock or else but that Pollock could both outwit and exploit the force of gravity," literally by anyone he devised a mode of on and T. J. Clark alluded to the artist's "suspension" of gravity;46 operation whereby gravity's impact the horizontal of that even so, neither engaged the question with the attention displacement poured paint, is, along the of the was rendered as minimal as requisite to explain exactly how Pollock managed to generate plane canvas, possible. since affects the vertical veloc this singular effect. Indeed, gravity only pigment's it itshorizontal motion while Upon reflection, this oversight is hardly surprising; art ity (by accelerating downward), in was movements to In history, after all, provides neither an adequate critical termi flight defined by Pollock's side side. nology nor the specialized conceptual tools to account for other words, the lateral (horizontal) velocity of the pigment was the gravitational aspects of the artist's technique. For this in free fall gravity independent.Even if the duration of its reason, introducing additional insights from physics is essen fall, and thus the lag between Pollock's gesture and its re tial to venture such an account and bridge this epistemolog cording on the canvas below, depended on themagnitude of

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14 Robert Smithson, Glue Pour, 1970, Vancouver, British Columbia. Destroyed (photograph Estate of Robert Smithson / licensed by VAGA, provided by theJames Cohan Gallery, New York)

13 Joan Miro, Birth of theWorld, 1925, oil on canvas, 985A X But whenever he reoriented the canvas to the Pollock 78% in. (250.8 X 200 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New wall, an reintroduced the York, acquired through anonymous fund, the Mr. and Mrs. gravity experientiallyby placing image paral Slifka and Armand G. and Joseph Erpf Funds, by gift of the lel to its vertical pull a position that, invariably, has a artist, 1972 (artwork estate of Miro/Artists marked effect on the Since Joan Rights spectator's perception. free-fall Society [ARS], New York; digital image The Museum of ing objects accelerate only in one direction,52 gravitymakes Modern Art /licensed by Scala, provided by Art Resource, NY) us and aware of is in automatically continuously where "up" relationship to "down." When we peruse something on the are no floor, by contrast, there absolute ways of detecting the fact remains that the horizon we our sense gravitational force, paint's orientation, explaining why often lose of direc talmotion was entirely freed from gravity. tion while exploring unfamiliar territory,and, once points of canvas on are we can turn As signaled earlier, Pollock's tactic of laying the reference established, maps around, orient the floor also released paint from gravity subsequent to its ing them along the same axis as our itinerary, to help us on the surface. Even as material moves our con impact picture poured navigate environment. Pollock worked under similar constant in as Krasner remembered: around the can with horizontal velocity the air, the situation ditions, "Working once encounters a vas in as was no changes the paint constraining surface of the 'arena' he called it there really abso on or any kind. The resultswould vary, of course, depending the lute top bottom."53 orientation of this surface. On an upright canvas, the paint Capitalizing on this very discrepancy between our different while still in liquid form would continue to accelerate along responses to vertical versus horizontal orientations, Pollock the picture plane, causing runs and streaks (as inJoan Miro's playfully, almost mischievously, used and subvertedgravity at Birth of theWorld, Fig. 13). A similar effectwould ensue on an the same time. In effect and thismay be the first instance in uneven or sloping ground (as in Robert Smithson's Asphalt the history of art he displayed his works at an angle from Rundown or Glue Pour, Fig. 14). By positioning the canvas flat which they could not possibly have been executed. Yet Pol on the floor (that is, at every point perpendicular to the lock realized how powerfully this position enhanced the ef direction of gravity), Pollock chose the only orientation at fects of kineticism already achieved by pouring. When reori which the paint would be prevented, as soon as it lands, from ented to thewall, themarks produced independently as far accelerating any further (discounting the small incursions as is possible of gravity's vertical pull are repositioned as or a same made it splashed spread from localized accumula where that very "up-versus-down" orientation and uni tion). In thisway, Pollock maintained exclusive control over directional pull are experienced by the spectator as not just most the motion consequential for the poured marks active but inescapable. A twofold readjustment by 90 degrees, a namely, the paint's horizontal motion and created visual in other words, allowed Pollock to circumvent the effects of effect altogether different from the gravity-drivenmarks gen gravityphysically, while displaying his work under conditions erated by Miro or Smithson. where gravity is instinctively felt to be fully and continually

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16 Pollock, Number 27, 1951, enamel on canvas, 5534 X 73 in. (141.6 X 185.4 cm). Private collection (artwork Pollock Krasner Foundation/Artists Rights Society [ARS], New York; photograph provided by theMarlborough Gallery, New York)

15 Pollock, Untitled 1948-49, CR3: 783, enamel on paper, 31 X 23 in. (78.7 X 58.4 cm). Stadeisches Kunstinstitut und Stadtische Galerie, Frankfurt (artwork Pollock-Krasner Foun dation /ArtistsRights Society [ARS], New York; photograph provided by Alex Matter)

operational. Had the paintings been painted on the wall, after all, the paint would have run or trickled downward, as in Miro's Birth of theWorld (Fig. 13) an expectation tacitly, though firmly,held by the audience. Since a Pollock abstrac tion, with lines moving in all directions, betrays no such effect, then we experience itsmarks, if only on a cognitive level, as surprisingly liberated from the hold of gravity. Although the effect of "subverting gravity," in the sense just elucidated, is paradigmatic of Pollock's "classic" abstractions from 1947 to 1950, exceptions can be found even inworks created with the same technique. Untitled 1948-49 (Fig. 15), for example, evokes neither the sensations of kinetic energy 17 Pollock, Number 23, 1951 58% X 4714 in. (149 X nor the effect of suspended gravity discussed above. What /Frogman, 120 cm). Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va. (artwork Pollock accounts for this difference? The piece was, after all, exe Krasner Foundation/Artists Rights Society [ARS], New York; cuted means of Pollock's characteristic by poured technique, photograph provided by the ChryslerMuseum) with the attendant twofold manipulation of the picture's orientation in play. Admittedly, the piece is conspicuously figural, but why should this obviate the otherwise idiosyn on of human no cratic advances obtained by painting the floor? Largely, line, however schematically, aspects anatomy because the piece clearly lacks the broad, sweeping lines doubt curtailed the full freedom and spontaneity of the Pollock deployed with such elan in "classic" paintings such as artist's gestures, particularly the vigorous strokes oriented Number 23 (Fig. 2), Full Fathom Five (Fig. 27), or Number 1A, across the canvas. Consequently, the lines in Untitled 1948-49 to out look constrained and meticulous. For the be 1948. The mandate imposed by figuration the need comparatively

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18 Pollock, Convergence:Number 10, 1952, oil on canvas, 7 ft. 914 in. X 13 ft. (2.374 X 3.962 m). Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, N.Y., gift of Seymour H. Knox, 1956 (artwork Pollock-Krasner Foundation/Artists Rights Society [ARS], New York; photograph provided by theAlbright-Knox Art Gallery)

the reference introduces the uni more holder, furthermore, figural tactile effects, and contained and localized marks for directionality of gravity, anchoring the painting firmlyalong rapid and unbroken linear trajectories. In combination with itsup-and-down axis. Intriguingly, the addition of a figurative figural references, such effects largely mitigated the sensa element even this minimal was to to enough preempt tions of dynamism and energy particular the "classic" (within a gravitationally ordered context) the distinct, cogni period. Predictably, patches of absorbed pigment signal more as slower and result as if not tive effect of perceiving poured marks freed from gravita deliberate, gestures much, more, tional force. from the paint's gradual interaction with the weave of the Pollock did not necessarily construe the experiential ef canvas as from the artist's willful agency. fects resulting from the reintroduction of figuration de However differently these compositional elements amal their "concession" to the force of as in spite apparent gravity gamated any individual piece, Pollock gauged their effec on a a detrimental. They simply represented another option af tiveness case-by-case basis. If dissatisfied with work in were Krasner . . . forded by the poured technique. If figurative references progress, recalled, "he wouldn't give up. He the exception rather than the rule from 1947 to 1950, their would just staywith it until itwas resolved for him."56 One appearance from 1951 to 1953 proves more the rule than the such work is Convergence:Number 10, 1952 (Fig. 18), a painting first was no less exception (Figs. 16, 17). Pollock, moreover, frequently di whose campaign monochromatic than the luted his paint even further, letting it be absorbed into, majority of Black Pourings of 1951-53, and might even have rather than solidify atop, the canvas surface. Exactly how resembled Number 27, 1951 or Number 23, 1951 (Figs. 16, 17), different pigment choices, and particular diluting additives, since vestiges of figuration may still be discernible in the contributed to the artist's stylisticand technical experimen upper-right quadrant. Presumably, this layer,by itself,did not to as meet the artist's criteria for a "resolved" tation remains be fully explored, especially the precise successful, fully identification of Pollock's materials is only now beginning to painting, and he subsequently added white, red, yellow, and see Krasner remembered to to current state. significant advances.54 Although blue skeins bring the composition its If to this "reconstruction" is at all then that he "got Du Pont make up very special paints for him, persuasive, Convergence, thinners that were not she was un straddles the fence between the "classic" and special turpentine," arguably, poured aware of their precise constitution.55 Regardless, it has long paintings of 1947-50 and the Black Paintings of 1951-53. to Even if latent references have been and been recognized that Pollock's proclivity from 1951 1953, figural obscured, in connection with the reintroduction of figural imagery,was even if characteristically Pollockian whiplash curves appear to substitute staining and puddling for more plastic and with some frequency, the work does not entirely recapture

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his placing the canvas on the ground qualified his creative as practice rotationally symmetric. This orientation changes everything. Gravity is the most readily identifiable force shaping and defining our environ ment at a macroscopic level; of the four forces of nature,59 only gravity has a well-defined, locally specific direction in stantly and continually felt by anyone on the planet.60 As this force a means of us such, provides orientation, allowing to even in or distinguish darkness vertical from horizontal top from bottom.61 As noted earlier, it is precisely the fixed direction of gravity at any particular location on the surface of the Earth thatmakes this distinction possible: without it, words like "up" or "down" would be meaningless. If not for a compass, we would have difficulty inferring horizontal orien tation, such as north from south,62 but we need no instru ment to infervertical orientation, a truism that is reflected in art. can as to art, especially representational We speculate whether the window in, say,Vermeer's Music Lesson (1662 64) is facing east or west, but there is no danger ofmistaking whether the pitcher is lying on the table or the table on the pitcher. Comparably, although artists usually insist on a unique orientation when exhibiting their work Pablo Pi 19 Les d'Olmo oil on Georg Baselitz, jeunesfilles II, 1981, casso and Morris made occa Louis, among others, having canvas, 98 X 98% in. (249 X 250 cm). Musee National d'Art sional exceptions to this rule63 theydo not usually prescribe Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (artwork Georg whether theirwork should be on the north or south Baselitz; photograph provided by the Reunion des Musees displayed Nationaux/Art Resource, NY) wall of a gallery.64 This condition applies even to such a contrarian artist as Georg Baselitz (Fig. 19), whose insistence on painting figures upside down is both powerful and discon the sensations of vigorous activity and suspension of gravity certing precisely because it runs afoul of the gravitational emblematic of the artist's previous phase. order of the world. To hang a Baselitz "properly," that is, These examples alone reveal not simply the wide range of upside down, would rob it of its raison d'etre. extent to in other out one direc pictorial effects Pollock could generate, but the Gravity, words, singles particular which the experiential sensations of "suspending" gravity tion, and by imposing order on the vertical while leaving the to or were not an themselves subject greater lesser intensity horizontal unordered, it breaks the symmetry of three-dimen inescapable outcome of the poured technique. For Pollock to sional space. From this perspective, Pollock's decision to the sensa canvas on more have conjured his signature effects, namely, very dispense pigment with his the floor does tions of "energy and motion made visible,"57 itwas not suffi than simply contravene the long-established tradition of easel to His method also ensured rotational vis-a cient dispense pigment freely in the air and reposition the painting. symmetry canvas perpendicularly to the direction of its fall. No less vis gravityand simultaneously achieved maximum freedom of requisite was modifying the viscosity of his paint so as to motion and flexibility while pouring. For these reasons, it permit the formation of well-defined, distinctly linear tracks, may have been logical for Pollock to paint circular canvases; and deploying it in such a way that the artist's motion in the he did, in fact, execute a tondo (CR2: 208, Fig. 20). This was an horizontal emerges in sharpest relief. Only in combination choice of format, however, exception: all poured are did these deliberate (albeit intuitive) adjustments enable abstractions, but for this singular example, rectangular in Pollock to "release" his marks from the pull of gravity shape. To be sure, Pollock occasionally painted circular por ironically, the very force without which they could not have celain or chinaware bowls during his formative years (see come into being. CR4: 916-25), but he broke the perfect symmetry of the spherical surface in each case by establishing a dominant Symmetry and Symmetry Breaking point of view.65 From his earliest production, then, Pollock an never considered unbroken circular to While Pollock's method of dispensing paint invites inves apparently symmetry tigation of the mechanics of pouring, the three dimension be a viable way of configuring his paintings.66 In Pollock's an mature of a canvas ality of his process invites investigation of its geometrical phase, his very choice rectangular also an properties.58 A largelyunderappreciated but salient aspect of broke circular symmetry, ifonly by privileging four out of Pollock's employment of gravity in his classic abstractions is infinite number of equally viable orientations.67 that he chose the only possible orientation whereby no direc Even so, since the very positioning of the canvas on the tion along the surface of his canvases was privileged in any floor placed all four principal orientations on an equal foot way. In practical terms, Pollock could rotate his horizontally ing, Pollock could keep an open mind as to which of these laid paintings or, equivalently, move around them while he four would ultimately prevail. For all intents and purposes, poured, with no change relative to the force of gravity. In the horizontal placement of the canvas deferred the necessity conceptual terms, the geometrical framework established by to commit to a final orientation while work was still in

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on 8 ft. 21 Morris Louis, Where, 1959-60, acrylic resin canvas, 3% in. X 11 ft. 10J/2in. (2.524 X 3.621 m). Hirshhorn Mu seum Smithsonian Wash and Sculpture Garden, Institution, ington,D.C., Gift of Joseph H. Hirshhorn 1966 (artwork Morris Louis; photograph by Lee Stalsworth, provided by the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden)

20 Pollock, Tondo, 1948, oil and enamel on metal, diameter 23% in. (58.7 cm). Private collection (artwork Pollock Krasner Foundation /ArtistsRights Society [ARS], New York; tial effect of on Pollock's photograph byMichael Tropea) escaping gravity clearly depended faithful adherence to an abstract, allover idiom. The Black Pourings of 1951-53 offer a case in point. An upright human body, after all, displays approximate mirror symmetry in the Yet the artist had to come to a decision at some no progress. vertical, but such symmetry in the horizontal (conve He have a canvas with no reverse our left and rather than our point. may approached predeter niently, mirrors right, top mined in but no sooner was a mark laid than a plan mind, and bottom, halves). Although highly rudimentary, the sug center of attention was established and perfect symmetry gestion of a female torso inNumber 23, 1951 and the head broken. within the dictates of an allover Working composi and multiple anatomical fragments inNumber 27, 1951 (Figs. tional idiom, the artist for these compensated preliminary 17, 16) not only break rotational symmetry, they also impose marks additional accents the can by distributing throughout a definite orientation and gravitational order on the pieces vas, thereby partially restoring the symmetrybroken by the declaring, if not the intended positioning, then the work's this Pollock allowed the first strike. By repeating process, are dominant axis. Even if figural elements represented balance the and take"68 of his compositional "easy give upside down, as in one, albeit exceptional, Black Pouring72 to All the same, his man paintings emerge. improvisational canvas un and in many a Baselitz rotational symmetry is ner ruled out perfect uniformity. As William Rubin already equivocally broken. Only by scrupulously avoiding recogniz observed: "The precarious poise of his all-over, single image able and any such references if they is achieved the of vir shapes by eliminating through equally precarious balancing in"73 could Pollock ensure overall and con endless In Pollock ac "crept symmetry tually asymmetries."69 many cases, jure effects of unfettered dynamism in the spectator's imag cepted and even enhanced these asymmetries, permitting more ination. certain sections of particular pieces to prove visually In the classic abstractions, then, Pollock's artistic process dominant than others. Accordingly, roughly 40 percent of can be described as a subtle interplay of both symmetrical Pollock's two hundred or so poured abstractions seem to be relations. He worked at an orientation exer and asymmetrical more heavily weighted in the lower register, a choice canvases symmetrical in relation to gravity but introduced asymmetric cised, presumably, to prevent his from looking "top the of his arm movements in some rare this was patterns by indulging spontaneity heavy," although, instances, principle and the fluid instabilitiesof the out a prac contravened.70 While working on an individual piece, Pollock letting paint play tice, that was conducive to the of most likely settled on its final orientation inmidstream. But incidentally, generation "fractal" akin to those detected in seem he always had the option till the lastminute to delay any patterns complex, chaotic natural structures.74Yet if such final decision regarding how the work should be exhibited.71 ingly unpredictable This artistic license constituted an unusual turnabout: for dynamics threatened to overwhelm his compositions with and Pollock reestablished overall traditional easel painters, the veryfirst decision is orienting fragmentation disorder, to the mandate of allover the canvas; for him, itmay have been his last "symmetry"by adhering composi even to this he exhibited his Since, as signaled earlier, the inclusion of the barest tion.75And, complete balancing act, canvases in a vis of figural outlines inevitably breaks the symmetry of the vertically manifestly asymmetrical position this license more the a-vis composition, and, important, experien gravity.

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cularity of a ballet dancer."76 Even Warhol, who repositioned his Oxidation Paintings on the wall after executing them on the floor, could not obtain the effects of velocity emblematic of Pollock's abstractions. Why? Because, his skill and dexter itynotwithstanding, Warhol still employed an "instrument" that, in comparison to Pollock's, did not permit a similar range of horizontal movement at the very orientation, itwill be recalled, where motion functions independently of grav ity. Larry Poons and Steir (Fig. 22) also engaged the force of gravity, yet without physically manipulating their canvases in .. any way. "I depend on gravity," Steir declared, ". [I] let the paint hit the canvas, walk away and let itdo its thing."77 From start to finish, Poons and Steir kept their canvas on the wall parallel to gravity compelling paint to run along its direction and providing direct visual evidence of itsunidirec tional attraction. In so doing, they obtained the fastest grav ity-drivenrivulets possible, with pigment running down the canvas (rather than in free fall, as was Pollock's practice). These rivulets, however, were relatively limited in their evo cation of kinetic energy, since the paint was retarded by its interaction with the canvas surface and most likely depleted before reaching appreciable speed.78 Not surprisingly, Pol lock himself generally avoided this effect. An exception is Yellow Islands of 1952 (Fig. 23); although primarily executed horizontally, its central cluster was probably applied with the canvas standing vertically, the to run as it Pat on allowing pigment 22 Steir, Three Little Dragon Waterfalls, 1990, oil canvas, would in a Poons or Steir.79 The raritywith which this com 60 X 48 in. Collection Flomenhaft Gallery (artwork Pat bination is in Pollock's work that the artist Steir; photograph provided by the Flomenhaft Gallery) repeated suggests may have viewed this "concession" (or partial relinquishing of control) to an external force at the center of Yellow Islands with a certain degree of ambivalence; in this particular con Under the Pull of Gravity text, though, the painting illustrates how drastically the visual To be sure, the intricacies of the poured technique just impact of a painting may alter depending on the way its versus oudined indulging symmetry-breaking imposing all maker employs gravity.80 Indeed, gauging their disparities over symmetry,working perpendicular versus exhibiting his side by side clarifies (perhaps more convincingly than any are work parallel to gravity singular aspects of Pollock's other explanation) how the marks generated by Poons or even more practice. But what demarcates his artistic idiom Steir appear driven by, while those generated by Pollock from those of free force. sharply subsequent artists who also worked appear of, gravitational concur within the field and under the sway of gravity is the Pollock's skeins of paint, even from 1951 to 1953, supply rent and employment circumvention of this force. direct evidence of the force the artist willfully exerted to Like Pollock, Morris Louis (Fig. 21) and Paul Jenkins made overcome the pigment's inertia,81 a tactic in direct opposi pouring integral to theirworking methods, adjusting the flow tion to the passive mode of execution employed by either a of paint to play nearly autonomous role in their art. Unlike Louis, Jenkins, Poons, or Steir artists who permitted the Pollock, however, who oriented his canvases either horizon pigment to flow down their canvases with far less interfer or tally vertically, Louis and Jenkins bent theirs into irregular ence. If Pollock's trajectories look active, freely driven, pred even as ran. surfaces, reshaping them the color By folding, icated on human agency, their color fields look passive, to a pleating, gathering, and funneling, they directed highly di weighed down, surrendered deterministic process. As to run luted pigment channel in temporary grooves, down Kenneth Noland remembered, Louis "wanted the appear inclines and or in basins. ance to be the result of the of not neces curves, pool momentary Capturing process making it a wide multiplicity of transient gravitational flows, these ma sarily to look like a gesture, but to be the result of real neuvers stand in contrast to Pollock's. Whereas his As for she "I to make sharp handling."82 Steir, declared, try paint marks were theirs were was an "gravity-independent," gravity-bound; ings that make themselves."83 Pollock of altogether whereas his "escaped," theirs embraced the pull of gravity. differentmind-set; for him, accidents had to be denied, and Louis's and once was Jenkins's gravitationally driven flows, moreover, "total control,"84 asserted, not to be forsworn. were even A reliance on was no to relatively slow, when compared with the Black gravitational force less crucial the Paintings of 1951-53, but especially when contrasted with the work of sculptors such as Linda Benglis (Fig. 24), Richard streams of paint generated either by the fastest thrusts of Serra (Fig. 25), and Robert Smithson (Fig. 14). Their strategy arm or Pollock's the rapid flicks of his wrist. As Pat Steir put of generating painterly effects hinged on using materials it, "To handle paint the way Pollock did, you need themus especially susceptible to deformation when poured or

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23 Pollock, Yellow Islands, 1952, oil on canvas, 56M> X 73 in. (143.5 X 185.4 cm). T teGallery, London (artwork Pollock-Krasner Foundation/Artists Rights Society [ARS], New York; photograph T teGallery, provided byArt Resource, NY)

splashed: pigmented latex and polyurethane foam (Beng lis),85 rubber and molten lead (Serra), or glue, asphalt, and granular material (Smithson). Benglis, for example, de scribed her works as "hybrids somewhere between painting and Like Pollock but unlike or sculpture."86 Louis, Steir, Poons and Serra often worked on the Benglis, Smithson, or in some on ter floor ground, though, instances, sloping rain or scaffolding. Unlike Pollock, they arranged for their materials to be dispensed almost passively, letting gravity act on thework with minimal intervention on their part; Benglis, Serra, and Smithson, furthermore, never intended to reori ent their pieces, neither while theirmaterials were still liquid nor after they solidified. As a consequence, the final shapes and configurations of their pourings are entirely consistent with the way one would expect their materials to behave; 24 Linda Eat cast 24 X 80 X there is no trace of Pollockian double Benglis, Meat, 1975, aluminum, play. 54 in. (61 X 203.2 X 137.2 cm), LB-157-SC, Collection Paula The methods of Eva Hesse 26), Robert Mor working (Fig. Cooper Gallery (artwork Linda Benglis; photograph pro and Serra his strike an even ris, again (in forged pieces) vided by the Paula Cooper Gallery) sharper contrast with Pollock's. Although critically depen dent on gravitational force to maintain shape and stability, the materials used whether rigid solids, flexible ropes, or of the materials chose or the methods volatile steam made later "repositioning" either physically Irrespective they used to the and earthwork art inconceivable, incompatible with the integrityof their design, shape them, post-Minimalists or more ists shared a marked for directness and both. What, after all, could be absurd than attempt predilection transpar . to steam? The works of these As Eva Hesse it, "I. . have a about ing "reposition" sculptors, ency. put strong feeling are to and con and in the I like to be . . . true to whatever moreover, various degrees impermanent honesty process, I and use it in the least and most direct tingent on exhibition conditions: Morris's Minimalist sculp use, pretentious a This directness and extended to the tures are predicated on their particular placement within way."88 transparency or museum are meant to various relied on, and the ef gallery space; many of Serra's works ways they "compensated" for, force. Once their be site specific; Hesse's rope pieces and Morris's felt sculp fects of gravitational complete, sculptures would unstable Morris's unless tures depend on the precise position of their suspension obviously prove (like steam) points; and Morris's steam pieces are, arguably, among the other forces counteracted the pull of gravity. In Hesse's rope most In for is balanced the tension in the ephemeral sculptures conceivable. Serra's words, pieces, example, gravity by "the form of thework in itsprecariousness denied the notion cords (tensile forces); in Serra's props, by friction; in the a self latter's and in Smithson's mirror and of transportable object, subverting the self-referential, early, forged structures, righteous notion of authority and permanence of objects."87 sand pieces, by both friction and the normal force. Normal

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over 26 Eva Hesse, Untitled, 1969-70, latex rope, string, wire, 2 strands, dimensions variable. Whitney Museum of American 25 Richard Serra, Splashing, 1968, lead, 1 ft. 6 in. X 26 ft. Art, New York, Purchase, with funds from Eli and Edythe L. X the Mrs. Uris (45.7 792.48 cm), installation,Castelli Warehouse, New Broad, Percy Purchase Fund, and the Painting York. Destroyed (artwork Richard Serra/Artists Rights and Sculpture Committee (artwork and photograph Estate Society [ARS], New York; photograph by Gianfranco Gorgoni) of Eva Hesse; photograph provided by Hauser & Wirth Z rich and London)

to a on an means of at a statement.' force refers the force exerted by surface object in arriving Like many artists of the contact with it,hindering the object's breaking through the New York school, he expected his works to conform to an surface in question (such as the upward force of the floor abstract idiom yet connote something more than what his exerted on any object placed on it).89 By relying overtly on materials denoted literally.Among his contemporaries, itwas tensile, frictional, and normal forces to maintain stability perhaps Clyfford Still who articulated this ambition most to a lesser on the internal stresses in "I never to I never and, degree, their emphatically: wanted color be color. structural elements these artists were able to their wanted texture to be or to I arrange texture, images become shapes. a materials in readily intelligible configurations. "Inmost ofmy wanted them all to fuse into living spirit."94 Serra "the construction and decision-mak as work," professed, Similarly, Pollock hoped his paintings would convey are not in terms an ing processes revealed. Material, formal, and contextual pects of the external world of "illustration" decisions are Pollock's terms self-evident."90 By comparison, ap but in of what he and other Abstract Expressionists his and "reinsertion" of called an When Pollock declared: con proach use, escape from, grav "equivalent."95 "my ismore and To be critics cern not mean ity complex, nuanced, crafty. sure, iswith the rhythms of nature,"96 he did that and historians have long recognized the originality of Pol his works referenced natural phenomena by imitating the even of or lock's contribution, but among those select artistswho appearance clouds, oceans, rivers ("I try," he stated, "to conceded a defining role in their art to gravity, Pollock still stay away from any recognizable image; if it creeps in, I tryto so a as . . was engaged that force in idiosyncratic way to place him in do away with it. ,"97); what he meant, rather, that his a all his own. works were intended to create visual un category equivalents for the derlying dynamism of nature.98 The way Abstract Expression Art and Metaphor istartists understood "the equivalent" is remarkably similar to one re Pollock's singularity notwithstanding, final question how cognitive linguists define "metaphor."99 Metaphors, after mains: Why did he risk "subverting" gravitywhile other artists all, do not describe literal characteristics but establish rela no who employed it less integrally than he did not? He could tionships relationships of equivalence. have exhibited his canvases on the floor. This would have Devising a conceptual framework for this idea, the linguist constituted an unorthodox choice, no doubt, but from an Eve Sweetser has persuasively contended that our intellectual cient mosaics to not to mention the Indian sand emo rugs paint way of construing the external world and of describing ers with whose techniques he recognized a close kinship91 tional states develops according to "metaphorical projec was no of on to an there shortage precedents which draw. tions" from physical experience. Without drawing analog Krasner's recollections confirm, however, that Pollock in ical relation between the two, she reasons that we reference tended his works to be viewed on the wall,92 the orientation, physical situations to express psychological states because as noted above, where the illusion ofmotion and evocation of both have "numerous experiential links drawing them to most Verbs such as "to "to or "to energy would be effective.But itmay also be argued that gether."100 seize," grasp," capture" even ifhis technique required working in concert with grav are obviously descriptive of physical experience: we physically ity,he circumvented its effects in order to suggest meanings seize, grasp, or capture objects in our daily encounters with as to our environment. The same verbs are to that artists such Serra and Smithson sought avoid. frequently employed own as r states as in Pollock, by his admission, construed technique only "a denote nonphysical, mental, emotive "seize

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an an or a opportunity," "grasp idea," "capture meaning," expressions through which they acquired new, metaphoric meanings. In thisway, the universality and tangibility of the physical realm are recruited to express the properties of the more nebulous and intangible psychological realm. Since we know what itmeans to "seize" an object physically, we rely on this knowledge to interpretwhat ismeant when someone says he or she has "seized" an opportunity. Significantly, these mappings are constrained; for a metaphor to strike the right we need to construe these activities as note, having "experi ential links" in common. If theAbstract Expressionists conceptualized "equivalence" as to mean analogous metaphor, then these artists projected ings on the physical sensations elicited by their work in a comparable way. Pollock would have construed the effects of dynamism evoked by his canvases not simply as a celebration of the act as a or of painting but metaphor "equivalent" for some other order of experience. To be sure, he enjoyed great latitude when constructing or refining the implications of his canvases during postcreative contemplation. "When I am inmy painting," he conceded, "I am not aware of what I am doing. It is only after a sort of 'get acquainted' period that I see what I have been about."101 Nonetheless, those meanings like the "metaphorical projections" mentioned by Sweetser must have been constrained by the physical sensations he feltwere being conveyed by his work. Given his identification with and affinityfor nature (Pollock's "relation to to .. He ship nature," according Krasner, "was intense.. identified very stronglywith nature"102), itwould hardly be surprising ifhe associated the impulsive rhythm of his work with the rhythmic pulse of the natural world. Steir, Serra, and Smithson clearly took an altogether dif ferent tack; by employing their materials literallyand non metaphorically, they shunned representational or symbolic allusions. Steir felt that her work was . . . "not complicated am the paintings are, what actually is paint falling."103 "I not Serra "in that conventional interested," declared, sculpture 27 Pollock, Full FathomFive, 1947, oil on canvas with nails, izes of content."104 The contrast was so metaphors especially tacks, buttons, keys, combs, cigarettes, matches, and on, underscored by Smithson: "Jackson Pollock's art," he wrote, 50% X 30% in. (129.2 X 76.5 cm). The Museum of Modern "tends towards a torrential sense of material that makes his Art, New York, Gift of Peggy Guggenheim (artwork Pollock Krasner Foundation /Artists [ARS], New York; paintings look like splashes of marine sediments. Deposits of Rights Society photograph licensed by Scala, provided by Art Resource, NY) paint cause layers and crusts that suggest nothing 'formal' but rather a physical metaphor without realism or naturalism. Full Fathom Five [Fig. 27] becomes a Sargasso Sea, a dense . . lagoon of pigment. ."105Thus, although Pollock intended and earthworks on the floor rather than tamper with them in no "realistic" or allusion to natural For an representational phenom any way (Figs. 14, 25). abstract sculpture, of course, ena, he sought to establish a link, as Smithson observed, the distinction between a "horizontal" or "vertical" orienta exclusively on themetaphoric plane (the artist, according to tion, or between a piece left in its "original position" or Krasner, once told her, "I saw a landscape the likes of which "repositioned," may be less obvious.108 A number of Smith no or re human being could have seen"106). It isprecisely this form son's Serra's works could conceivably have been or in some to of reference that Smithson Serra rejected. Smithson felt configured vertically and, cases, fastened the wall. nature . that the evocations of "constantly.. lurking in Pol But such repositioning would compromise the intent of these lock . . . a . .. somehow more to [presented] problem [something] pieces and, the point, render their configurations underneath all those masses of In counter to a cre seething paint." susceptible metaphorical projection, condition the distinction, he utilized materials in a way that, in his own ators expressly sought to avoid. Subsequently, pieces that was con ar words, "abstract and devoid of any mythological include prominent vertical components and meticulous tent."107 rangements Serra's Prop (1968) orHouse ofCards (1969), for mate are more as their titles to be con Accordingly, Smithson and Serra manipulated their example likely, indicate, rials in a literal as opposed to referential manner. In this strued associatively. This predicament also applies to Steir's spirit, they decided to leave their splashings, scatter pieces, Waterfalls: even as she saw her materials to be nothing but

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ever we a our start contemplate Pollock abstraction, eyes will following the linear tracks on the canvas, just as we tend to fix our gaze on any moving object (cognitive psychologists call this tendency "trajectory tracking"1n). As suggested earlier, a thinning and a thickening line is involuntarily interpreted as an as one index of acceleration and deceleration; yet, peruses Pollock's no sooner are lines in a works, tracked particular direction and a definite to orientation assigned them than they crisscross, merge, overlap, run off the edge of the frame, or simply end. With the spectator's gaze repeatedly skipping from one thread to another in a haphazard way, no individual mark is likely to compel attention for long; thus, any particular line is as likely to be followed in one as in the opposite direction. Projecting a particular orientation on any specific line, therefore, proves not just provisional but revers ible, and as soon as that orientation is reversed, the line's visual impact may alter in a decisive way. Contingent on the direction the viewer happens to select, the skeins may alter look natively "leaden," "sinking," "drooping" or, conversely, and No matter "buoyant," "floating," "soaring." how subjec or states tive, descriptive of mental rather than actual condi tions, all of these metaphorical projections are nonetheless extrapolated from our physical experiences with gravity: in deed, these epithets describe gravitational phenomena par excellence.112 Irrespective of how provisional or reversible these spatio temporal projections may be, there is one aspect of Pollock's pictorial language that proves far less open to interpretation. By appearing "energetic," "mutable," and "restless," his on on can 28 Mark Rothko, Green and Tangerine Red, 1956, oil poured paintings call up physical sensations of overcoming vas, 931/2X 691/s in. (237.4 X 175.5 cm). Collection, Phillips inertia. As a result, they hardly lend themselves to be con D.C. Kate Rothko Prizel & Christo Washington, (artwork strued as or con "lethargic," "inflexible," "placid." On the pher Rothko /ArtistsRights Society [ARS], New York; photo Pollockian tomind swiftand graph provided by the Phillips Collection) trary, trajectories bring swirling currents, or turbulent flows of liquid akin to those in Leo nardo's drawing (Fig. 9). In fact, when acknowledging his "concern with the rhythms of nature," Pollock specifically some ocean "paint falling," the artist conceded that of her works did referenced "the way the moves."113 It is their very a "look like picture of water falling."109 dependence on the recording and evocation of fluid dynam When repositioned on a wall, further, any object or mate ics, therefore, thatmake Pollock's abstractions such effective more rial is easily reinscribed within an aesthetic framework. metaphors for concepts or experiences we associate with the As non-art was no Clement Greenberg declared, the "look of propagation of energy especially the propagation of energy available to since even an canvas longer painting, unpainted in the natural world.114 now stated itself as a "the borderline a an picture." Consequently, Against such background, Pollock provides instructive between art and non-art had to be in the three contrast to a sought Mark Rothko, fellow Abstract Expressionist where and where ma no no on dimensional, sculpture was, everything whose work is lessmetaphoric and less dependent terial that was not art also was."110 It therefore stands to the physical sensations associated with gravitational force. reason that whereas Smithson and Serra exhibited their Unlike Pollock, of course, Rothko did not rely on gravity in as were works they created, Pollock did not. Displayed verti the actual process of painting. All the same, the metaphoric cally, his work would be firmly relocated within aesthetic meanings projected on his work arise from the viewer's pro to on canvases rather than nonaesthetic territory,and the pursuant effect of pensity superimpose gravitational order his from the literal matter-of-fact in the that subverting gravity, detracting particular, expectation "heavier" objects settle ness was more of his materials, likely to encourage the very below "lighter" ones, and fluids of larger beneath those of kind of kinesthetic Pollock himself in smaller For this Rothko's Green and Tan participation engaged density.115 reason, while perusing works of art, and which he hoped would also gerine on Red (Fig. 28) where an intensely dark green rect be triggered whenever anyone perused his own. These phys angular area rests atop a markedly brighter, reddish one ical in would the to a as sensations, turn, encourage spectator will likely strike spectator untenable. On the experiential same seems initiate the process of metaphorical projection the level, Rothko's composition "unstable," "unbalanced," on even "frustrated." These process, presumably, which Pollock himself relied when "physical" states, in turn, will pro constructing the meanings of his work. voke emotional responses that count, in Sweetser's sense, as on a What this implies, more practical level, is thatwhen experientially linked. "High" is invariably connected with

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is and of all and his what ispositive and dominant, "low" with what negative things programmatic, precalculated, repressive; to the industrial in which he lived "the air subservient: the elect ascend to heaven but the damned plum reaction age as it took met into hell; the brave rise to the occasion but the overcon plane, the atom bomb, the radio,"123 he described live to the form of a denial or The of Abstract fident fall flat on their face; the conscientious up negation. majority this would have Robert Motherwell, for expectations, but the indolent let others down.116Within Expressionists concurred; the "The abstractness of modern art has to do framework, the placement of the darker above lighter example, insisted, with how much an mind of the contem area in Rothko's painting will appear burdensome, oppres enlightened rejects sive, even ominous. In fact, Rothko himself described the porary social order."124 This thesis isnot with the lowermeasure as "the happier side of living" and the higher altogether incompatible synthesis here. If it is not the but the subversion measure as "the black clouds and worries that always hang proposed employment over us."117 In thismanner, both Pollock and Rothko could of gravity that sharply differentiates Pollock's contribution from of other not this subversion have be said to generate metaphoric projections by using the that artists, might But each in a another individual act of a defiant physical as an analog to the psychological.118 signaled yet rebellion, a to different way and for a different purpose: whereas Rothko refusal to conform, stubborn resolve "outwit" the very in natural order with which his own abstractions were meant to foregrounds gravity, Pollock conceals it;whereas Rothko our Pollock confounds them. be consonant? In which case, not the artist be beckon dulges expectations, might as us to a of on his abstract Viewed in this light, the subversion of gravity emerges ing project plurality meanings our with the of na instrumental to the artist's overall strategy. It solved impor canvases? Not only sympathy rhythms our sense of and unlimited tant practical problems, reinforced the most salient visual ture,125 but personal autonomy126 his from as well?127 Too overtones, too demands, characteristics of his work, kept process transgress potential many many his for work of art to accommodate. Yet Pollock ing the domain of the aesthetic, and underpinned perhaps, any mean if how resonant and his broader strategy of constructing and communicating grasped, only intuitively, portentous more vivid rendition of and momentum would As ing. Still, it is ironic that in evoking nature all the energy prove. most Michel de remarked: "notre vie n'est mouve effectively,Pollock endeavored to "obfuscate" its readily Montaigne que observable force. No doubt perplexing, this conundrum is a effect at first nonetheless reminiscent of gravitational that, seems no less counterintuitive: if an elevator severed glance, a the float from its cable accelerates down shaft, passengers Claude Cernuschi teaches art historyat Boston College. He has inside if the sensation of ing will, only momentarily, enjoy authoredJackson Pollock: Meaning and Significance; Jackson Pollock's art his audience an weightlessness. (without subjecting Pollock: "Psychoanalytic" Drawings; "Not Illustration but to imminent a he danger) presents comparable paradox; may the Equivalent": A Cognitive Approach to Abstract Expres have enlisted but he concealed itseffects. His method gravity, sionism; and Re/Casting Kokoschka: Ethics and Aesthetics, of was inconceivable without dispensing pigment gravita Epistemology and Politics [431 Devlin, Boston College, Chestnut his to accelerate tional force, yet poured trajectories appear Hill, Mass. 02467, [email protected]]. and decelerate, advance and retreat, dash and swerve, all its reach. beyond Even so, these illusions of motion were never meant to Andrzej Herczynski teachesphysics at Boston College.He has pub same function as ends in themselves. In fact, these very lished articles in Physics of Fluids, Physical Review B, Applied even illusions provoked a multiplicity of readings, among Physics Letters, Quarterly Journal of Mechanics and Applied critics determined to locate Pollock's work within a firmly Lab Mathematics, among others. He wrote Introductory Physics broader sociohistorical context. In "The Liberating Quality of oratoryManual and contributedto theMacmillan Encyclopedia that Avant-Garde Art," for instance, Meyer Schapiro argued of Physics [230D Higgins, Boston College, ChestnutHill, Mass. the celebration of spontaneity and impulse in the work of 02467, [email protected]]. Pollock and his contemporaries represented an oblique but means of cultural Since artistic con pointed critique. activity stitutes one of the few arenas left in capitalist society for Notes individual expression to manifest itselfwithout managerial An earlier version of this essay was presented at the session "Jackson Pollock's then the Abstract oversight, Expressionists' unprecedented Afterlife," chaired by Todd Cronan and Michael Schreyach, at the College Art Association Conference, 2006, Boston. The authors would like to flaunting of improvisation in theirmode of execution could February thank Richard J. Powell, editor-in-chief of The Art Bulletin, and the anonymous be construed as a direct to for the are attempt compensate reviewers for theirmany recommendations for improvement. Thanks also to Elliott for their assistance with marginalization of spontaneity and individual agency in due Adeane Bregman and Joanne sources, and to Kenneth Michael Rein and mechanized industrial Whereas thismaterial Craig, JefferyHowe, Mulhern, Uritam, production.119 Richard Fenigsen for their helpful ideas and suggestions. We would also like not fit several ist, though ultimately metaphoric, interpretation may to acknowledge Patrick Weidman and Howard Stone for bringing on the fluid of to our attention; and all painters associated with theNew York school,120 and many papers dynamics pouring Jessica Lange 11a,our research assistant, for her detective work in finding and social art historians have come to indefatigable actually diametrically op digesting the relevant literature. We thank the Boston College Office of were Research and the Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences for their posed conclusions,121 Pollock's political sympathies Sponsored generous financial support. The authors express special gratitude to Susan with its basic From this perspec closely aligned premise.122 Forster, wife to one and friend to the other, for her patience and continued to tive, the artist's evocation of spontaneous bodily motion, support. We dedicate this essay, with affection, Ursula and Ryszard. with natural and of a natural a empathy phenomena, enlisting 1. Paul Brach, "From a symposium, Jackson Pollock: Portrait and force in his working process served to reinforce his rejection Dream,' Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, NY," in Such Desperate

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York: Thun 23. B. H. "An Interview with Lee Krasner in Joy: Imaging Jackson Pollock, ed. Helen A. Harrison (New Friedman, Pollock," Jackson der's Mouth Press, 2000), 277. Pollock: Black and White (New York: Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, 1969), in Karmel, Pollock: Interviews, Articles, Reviews, 2. Rosalind Krauss, The Unconscious Mass.: MIT reprinted Jackson Optical (Cambridge, 38. Press, 1993), 242-329. Webster's SeventhNew s.v. and broadcast on 24. Collegiate Dictionary, "drip" "pour." 3. Jackson Pollock, interview byWilliam Wright (1950), In discrete be of the WERI (Westerly, R.I.), 1951, reprinted in Pepe Karmel, ed., Jackson 25. addition, droplets may produced, irrespective on an a or Pollock: Interviews,Articles, Reviews (New York: Museum of Modern Art, amount of pigment carried implement, by sudden jolt 1999), 21. thrust. on cartoon meant to be trans of Alexander Calder or the kinetic of 4. Renaissance painters working drawings 26. The mobiles pieces George ferred to the wall, as is well known, did not alter the conventions of Rickey and Jean Tinguely have also introduced motion in sculpture. to external move rather their craft in the slightest. But these mobiles, subject forces, actually at rest. a of on the ver than depict motion while remaining 5. The time of flight of paint fragment depends, course, scenes in tical component of its initial velocity (at itsmoment of separation 27. Falling figures, given their frequency inmythological (as were or and from Pollock's implement). For example, if the pigment pro Pieter Bruegel's Fall of Icarus Hendrik Goltzius's Phaeton) to lateral movement it it in the Last are pelled upward (in addition any may have), Christian iconography (particularly Judgment), per canvas if it were are would take longer for it to reach the than initially haps more persuasive, most likely because their poses immediately is of the hor as propelled downward. But the time of flight independent recognizable "unnatural." izontal (lateral) component of initial velocity. 28. Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics (Northampton, Mass.: Tundra a an exhibition at the 6. Intriguingly, there is photograph of Sidney Ja Publishing, 1993), 111-13. nis in 1955 (Francis O'Connor and Thaw, eds., Jack Gallery Eugene 29. Giacomo Balla's rendition of human locomotion was most likely in son Pollock: A Raisonne and Other Works, Catalogue ofPaintings, Drawings, the found in the comic ofWilhelm Busch. vol. 4 re spired by precedents strips 4 vols. [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978], [hereafter the outlines Other examples include Umberto Boccioni, who blurred ferred to as CR4], 275), where White Cockatoo: Number 24A, 1948 of his and Russolo, who used arrowhead configurations cat. no. 194 referred to as CR2: is shown ex figures, Luigi (CR2, [hereafter 194]) to evoke an exam dynamism. hibited on the ceiling. But thismay have been anomalous to exhibit this one time 30. This connection was elucidated Ellen G. Landau in "Action/Re ple, which the gallery may have decided way by as as can was not intended to be Action: The Artistic of Herbert Matter and Pol only. The painting, far be discerned, Friendship Jackson in Pollock ed. Landau and Claude Cernuschi exhibited this way, nor has been ever since. lock," Matters, (Chestnut Hill, Mass.: McMullen Museum of Art, Boston 2007), 9-57. Oxford College, 7. Leo Steinberg, Other Criteria (New York: University Press, see For additional information on Pollock's relation to photography, 1972), 84. David Anfam, Abstract Expressionism (London: Thames and Hudson, to an Idea: a Modernism 8. T. J. Clark, Farewell Episodes from History of (New 1990), 122-23; idem, "Pollock Drawing: The Mind's Line," inNo Lim Haven: Yale 325. on ed. Susan Davidson University Press, 1999), its,Just Edges: Jackson Pollock Paintings Paper, are themselves in York: Publications, 2005), 31-33; and Caroline 9. Satellites orbiting the Earth, like the space station, (New Guggenheim not to Alone: Clement Modernism and theBureaucratiza free fall, and therefore any object inside them will be subject Jones, Eyesight Greenberg's relative to the orbiter. tion theSenses of Press, 2005), 242-50. gravitational acceleration of (Chicago: University Chicago 31. William M. Ivins Prints and Visual Communication 10. The most famous example is that of the Greek painter Nealkes, who, Jr., (Cambridge, a at to his Mass.: Harvard Press, 1953), 152-53. unable to reproduce horse foaming the mouth satisfaction, University at his work in to obtain the effect he was to flung paint frustration, only very 32. Interestingly, Pollock known have admired Darcy Thompson's seen as a desired. In many ways, Nealkes could be providing prece book On Growth and Form (New York: Macmillan, 1948), which in dent for at least insofar as he a certain Pollock, relinquished degree cluded several examples of strobe photography. on of control, as well as severed the artist's dependence the physical 33. See Martin What Comes Naturally: Morphogenesis and contact between the brush and the canvas. Closer in time isMan Ray, Kemp, "Doing the Limits of the Genetic Art 55 30. also eliminated Code," Journal (Spring 1996): who, in using spray paint in his aerographs, any physi cal contact between the artist and the canvas (see Aerograph, 1919, 34. Pollock, interview byWright, 22. a of Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart). 35. A seismograph needle moves with single degree freedom, to whom in with three of free 11. The Native American sand painters (and Tibetan monks), whereas Pollock's gestures range space degrees course. to the number of Pollock himself owed some debt, constitute an exception, of dom. The number of degrees of freedom pertains a of that was far needed to the of the In the But these artists practiced mode pigment application variables specify configuration system. can be more restrictive in its range of motion. needle's case, the position of the recording tip specified just the of the arm to which it is attached. 12. It should be said, however, that after his apprenticeship with the by angle learned how much was William Rubin made a similar observation: "marks have poured technique, Pollock pigment necessary 36. In his essays, to the character or of the to achieve any particular effect. no inevitable relationship speed, range that them. Similar marks can be made in 13. Frank O'Hara, Pollock (New York: Braziller, 1959), 26. body-movements produce Jackson as similar and wrist movements can lead quite different ways just body 14. B. H. Friedman, Pollock: Made Visible (New York: Pollock and the Modern Jackson Energy to quite different marks." Rubin, "Jackson McGrawHill, 1972), xiii. in Tradition,"Artforum 5 (February 1967), reprinted Karmel, Jackson 15. Ibid., xiv. Pollock: Interviews,Articles, Reviews, 124. Pollock to about a inch 16. Thomas Hart Benton, quoted in Stephen Polcari, "Jackson 37. These "sinusoidal" oscillations range up quarter (or to and Thomas Hart Benton," ArtsMagazine 53 (March 1979): 123. five millimeters) in wave length from peak peak and frequently in (that is, transition from minute to 17. Art and (New York: Minton, Balch, 1934), 54. vary amplitude they gradually John Dewey, Experience or larger size, vice versa). 18. Different three-dimensional in be re trajectories may, principle, was as 38. This effect is rare in Pollock's and corded in the same way on the canvas below, just objects of exceedingly production nearly of two factors. the cast same shadow. for achieved here because of the confluence First, pa different shapes may the Up-and-down motion, was coated so as to make its surface smooth (for Pol will in some cases when it is confined to a single per unusually example, (namely, was a as not in lock), and, second, the red paint's viscosity unusually high (for vertical register only variations in skein thickness, plane) so as tomake such oscillations their altered direction. drawing), pronounced possible. see Neil M. on such as the 39. For a discussion of this phenomenon, 19. Even highly indexical works paper freely meandering comprehensive for lack Ribe, of Viscous Proceedings of theRoyal Society,London, "automatic drawings" practiced by the Surrealists, example "Coiling Jets," Series A, 460 (November 2004): 3223-39. comparable immediacy. no. and CR4: see E. H. Art and 40. CRS (catalogue raisonne supplement) 24 20. For a penetrating discussion of this idea, Gombrich, Respectively, 977. Illusion: A Study in thePsychology ofPictorial Representation (Princeton: a Princeton University Press, 1972), 179ff. 41. For a fluid-mechanical model of the paint jets created by the artist, a and simulation of some of the effects he generated, and 21. In addition to having appropriate density viscosity, liquid paint computational for in a Pol review of the relevant literature, see S. Lee, S. Olsen, and B. must have other properties to make it suitable painting physics a tension Gooch, and Pollock's Paintings," Jour lockian manner. A liquid with too large surface (mercury, "Simulating Analyzing Jackson not leave marks nal Mathematics and Art 1 2007): 73-78. for example) may be "pourable" but may permanent of (June on the canvas. of in 42. This description of delay between the motion pigment flight and that of the in the artist's movement for the sake 22. Pollock, interview byWright, 21. change ignores,

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of simplicity, other factors that will tend to "rein in" the paint, such as 61. Seasickness, as the name suggests, is an anomalous state in which the the cohesion forces within the fluid. "vertical" and "horizontal" begin to lose their separate identities. 43. See Claude Cernuschi and Andrzej Herczynski, "Cutting Pollock 62. Numerous animals (from bacteria to turtles, sharks, and pigeons) can Down to Size: The of Poured Landau Boundaries the Technique," in in fact orient themselves with respect to Earth's magnetic field but, and Cernuschi, Pollock Matters, 73-89. apparently, humans lack this ability. The mechanism of magnetore in is understood but is a of 44. In accordance with Newtonian mechanics, Pollockian skeins would be ception living organisms poorly subject intense research; see Sonke and Kenneth Lohmann, straight unless under the influence of external forces. But, since Pol Johnsen J. "Mag in Animals," 61 29-35. lock's abstractions are typically composed of curved lines, the inescap netoreception Physics Today (March 2008): able conclusion at least in a sense is that the mo literal, physical 63. Picasso's The Swimmer of 1929 (Musee Picasso, Paris) was ostensibly tion recorded on the canvas was not free from some extrinsic or so push created that it could be hung following any of the four principal It of the artist himself who that "external" pull. was, course, provided orientations. See Pepe Karmel, "A Sum of Destructions," inVarnedoe force directions as he moved his in the air. by changing implement and Karmel, Jackson Pollock: New Approaches, 75. In parallel, Louis also left himself to the orientation of his canvases after 45. See also Robert Morris, "Some Notes on the Phenomenology of Mak open change they were see Morris Louis York: Museum ing: The Search for the Motivated," in Looking Critically: 21 Years of completed; John Elderfield, (New of Modern 35. For an of El similar Artforum Magazine, ed. Amy Baker Sandback (Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Art, 1986), analysis Lissitzky's pro see Research Press, 1984), 88-92; Rosalind Krauss, "The Crisis of the Ea clivities, Yve-Alain Bois, "El Lissitzky: Radical Reversibility," Art in America no. 4 160-81. sel Picture," infackson Pollock: New Approaches, ed. Kirk Varnedoe and 76, (1988): Karmel York: Museum of Modern Art, and Pepe (New 1999), 155-80; 64. Of course, certain paintings, permanently placed, such as frescoes, Yve-Alain Bois and Rosalind Krauss, Formless: A User's Guide (New York: were created in view of the orientation of architectural structures and Zone Books, 1999). sources of light, requiring a particular location for the work. 46. Elizabeth Frank, Pollock (New York: Abbeville Press, 1983), 114; as a fackson 65. The question to whether dominant symmetry-breaking axis and Clark, Farewell to an Idea, 335. or should be imposed overall symmetry preserved was faced by artists 47. Newton's second law, F m ,where the bar denotes a vector quan working within the confines of rotationally symmetrical spaces either circular or tity (that is, a quantity, like force and acceleration, that have both a ceilings hemispheric cupolas. In Pietro da Cortona's As the magnitude and direction). This equality requires that the acceleration sumption of Virgin (S. Maria inVallicella, Rome, 1647-51), for in mass on ( ) of any {m) follow the direction of the applied net force (F). stance, the focus the Virgin imposes a privileged line of sight, term an thereby breaking the rotational symmetry of the hemispheric dome. 48. The "small" refers here to the concept of ideal point particle, an In Andrea Mantegna's ceiling of the Camera in the that is, object small enough so that its rotation, any internal de degli Sposi Palazzo Ducale inMantua contrast, the overall of grees of freedom (such as and the effect of air resis (1474), by symmetry deformability), as one tance can be the design is preserved: rotates underneath the fresco, no per ignored. seems over spective privileged any other. A similar problem, to 49. a mechanical will this bring Perhaps simple example clarify point. Imagine the matter down to earth, faced clock from the a designers very begin small ball falling under gravity: it accelerates downward, in the di ning of horology. Whereas the Roman numerals of early clocks are rection of the force to it, If the same ball applied namely, gravity. oriented with to the center, Arabic numerals of an symmetrically respect rolls down incline, itwill accelerate along its slope, not directly later clocks are often aligned the rotational sym downward. To it when constraints are as vertically, breaking put differently, present (such of the circular dial. an on metry incline which the ball rolls), the applied force may cause a re 66. these round run afoul of their action or constraint force (that of the incline acting on the ball). The Consequently, pieces likely prototype Clemente Orozco's Man Fire a fresco al object will then accelerate in the direction corresponding to the net Jose of (1938-39) that, sum not nonetheless avoids a force namely, the of the applied and reaction forces acting on though rotationally symmetric, single privi our axis. it (in scenario, the ball will accelerate along the incline). leged compositional 67. Artists such as Piet Mondrian Ivan Puni 50. In the example given in n. 49 above, the ball will cease to accelerate (Counter-Composition, 1924), if the surface on which it is constrained to roll becomes horizontal (Still Life withHammer, 1915), Kenneth Noland (Autumn Spirit, 1965), cannot and Richard Serra of course, other al precisely because it accelerate perpendicularly to the applied (Boston Road, 1974), explored ternatives to the four canonical orientations of canvases. force (gravity). rectangular 68. Possibilities 1 re 51. Of course, when the angle between the applied force and the tracks Jackson Pollock, "My Painting," (Winter 1947-48), in Pollock: 17. becomes greater than 90 degrees, the cart will begin to accelerate printed Karmel, Jackson Interviews,Articles, Reviews, backward with (that is, negative acceleration). 69. Rubin, "Jackson Pollock and the Modern Tradition," 131. 52. the effect of air in the case of Discounting, again, resistance, pigment 70. See, for example, CR2: 224, 225, 228, 236. fragments in flight with horizontal as well as vertical components of 71. Several photographs of Pollock's studio, as well as his exhibition velocity. lay outs display a number of works at an orientation different from how 53. Friedman, "An Interview with Lee Krasner Pollock," 38. are they hung today. In a photograph of Pollock's 1950 exhibition at 54. See Nicholas on Parsons for Number 1950 Eastaugh, "What It Says the Tin: A Preliminary Study Betty (CR4, p. 254), example, 17, (CR2: 271, Museum of of the Set of Paint Cans and the Floor in the Pollock-Krasner Studio," Wfliitney American Art, New York), is hung vertically as to a in Landau and Cernuschi, Pollock Matters, 143-54. opposed horizontally. Moreover, photograph of Pollock's studio of 1951 (CR4, p. 261, lower left) shows a single strip of canvas con 55. Referring to the constitution of these paints and thinners, Krasner taining several paintings, which, as was Pollock's custom this added, "I don't know what itwas." Lee Krasner, "Jackson Pollock at during period, were later separated. Black and White II (CR2: 330) Work: An Interview with Lee Krasner," by Barbara Rose, in Karmel, Painting now with an orientation different from how it in the Jackson Pollock: Interviews,Articles, and Reviews, 43. hangs appears photograph. 56. Ibid., 45. 72. A 1951 photograph of Pollock's studio, CR4, p. 261, shows a number 57. Jackson Pollock, handwritten statement, in Karmel, Pollock: In of on a canvas. Jackson paintings executed single roll of Among them is Black terviews,Articles, and Reviews, 24. and a White Painting II (CR4: 330), piece that was presumably exe 58. cuted with a Following scientific usage, the terms "geometric" and "geometrical" different orientation from the one in which it is pres a carry subtly different meaning. By "geometric" we mean a mathe ently exhibited. Even if the reductive evocation of a human head is matical of a or an the artist property pattern image (geometric figure, geomet reversed, obviously favored (though at which point is un ric whereas to a an this as facade), "geometrical" refers quality of observation clear) particular reorientation, evidenced by the placement of or a his description geometrical thinking, geometrical considerations. signature. Breaking with his practice of painting from all four we sides of the Likewise, say "symmetric equation" and "symmetric design," but canvas, Pollock, as the photograph indicates, must have "symmetrical placement" and "symmetrical relations." painted these pieces predominantly from one side. 59. The four forces and are 73. "I he "to (gravitational, electromagnetic, strong, weak) try," stated, stay away from any recognizable image; if it now all to different a thought be manifestations of single, unified creeps in, I try to do away with it. ..." Jackson Pollock, interview in force. three of the four and in Only weak, strong, electromagnetic LifeMagazine, quoted Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, Jack have been shown thus far to derive from same son the "source" and to be Pollock: An American Saga (New York: Clarkson Potter, 1989), 591. unified in what is called the standard which has model; gravity, always 74. For a detailed discussion of the applicability of fractal geometry to the proved difficult to understand, remains un-unified. analysis of Pollock's poured abstractions, and of the structural con 60. The direction of of course, is fixed relative to the Earth's sur nection between gravity, his work and naturally occurring patterns, see it is in other on for residents of the face; dependent, words, location; Claude Cernuschi, Andrzej Herczynski, and David Martin, "Abstract North and South "down" or would be in the Poles, "up" actually op Expressionism and Fractal Geometry," in Landau and Cernuschi, Pol direction. lock posite Matters, 91-104. Other discussions of this topic include Richard P.

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Taylor, "Order in Pollock's Chaos," ScientificAmerican, December 97. Pollock, interview in Life Magazine, 591. 2002, 116-21; Adam P. Micolich, and David "Fractal Taylor, Jonas, 98. See Claude Cernuschi, Jackson Pollock: Meaning and Significance (New of Pollock's Nature 399 1999): 422; Analysis Drip Paintings," (June York: Harper/Collins, 1992), esp. chap. 3; and Cernuschi and Her Micolich, and "Fractal World 12 Taylor, Jonas, Expressionism," Physics czynski, "Cutting Pollock Down to Size," 73-89. (October 1999): 25-28; Taylor, Micolich, and Jonas, "The Construc 99. See Claude Cernuschi, "Not an Illustration but the A tion of Jackson Pollock's Fractal Drip Paintings," Leonardo 35 (2002): Equivalent": Cogni tiveApproach toAbstract Expressionism (Madison, N.J.: Associated Univer 203-7; J. R. Mureika, G. C. Cupchik, and C. C. Dyer, "Multifractal Fin sityPresses, 1997). gerprints in the Visual Arts," Leonardo 37, no. 1 (2004): 53-56; Mureika, Dyer, and Cupchik, "Multifractal Structure in Nonrepresen 100. Eve Sweetser, From Etymology toPragmatics: Metaphorical and Cultural tational Art," Physical Review E 72 (2005): 046101; and Katherine Aspects of Semantic Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, see Jones-Smith and Harsh Mathur, "Revisiting Pollock's Drip Paintings," 1990), 145; also Mark Johnson, The Body in theMind: The Bodily Nature 444 (November 2006): E9-E10. Basis ofMeaning, Imagination, and Reason (Chicago: University of Chi cago Press, 1987); and George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous 75. The allover compositions of Color Field painters such as Larry Poons Things: What Categories Reveal about theMind (Chicago: University of (for example, Nixe's Mate) and Jules Olitski (Untitled), while still intro even Chicago Press, 1987). ducing a certain degree of variation at fine scale, are, arguably, 101. 18. more symmetrical than Pollock's works. Pollock, "My Painting," Pollock atWork: An Interview with Lee 76. Pat Steir, quoted in Paul Gardner, "Pat Steir: Seeing through the Eyes 102. Krasner, "Jackson Krasner," of Others," ArtNews 84 (November 1985): 88. 42. 103. Pat "Interview with Pat San November 77. Pat Steir, quoted in Anne Waldman, "Pat Steir," Bomb 83 (Spring Steir, Steir, Francisco, 1990," by 5. 2003): 36. Constance Lewallen, View 7 (Fall 1991): near a a or a 104. Richard interview Gerard in 78. A flow of viscous liquid surface (down wall in pipe, for Serra, "Rigging," by Hovagyman Weyer a Richard Serra: 128. example) will conform to what is called the "no slip" condition, graf, Interviews,Etc., condition the of will be diminished whereby velocity liquid particles 105. Robert Smithson, The Writings ofRobert Smithson, ed. Nancy Holt (New near the wall will be zero next to the (and right wall). York: New York University Press, 1979), 89. a 79. Conceivably, Pollock could also have applied large amount of paint 106. Friedman, "An Interview with Lee Krasner Pollock," 37. in the central area and the canvas while that area was repositioned 107. Robert Smithson, interview Paul in Smithson, The Writ still wet. by Cummings, ings ofRobert Smithson, 146, 147. 80. such isNumber 1948: Yellow Another exception 6, Blue, Red, (1948, are 108. More generally, the terms horizontal or vertical problematic when used CR2: 209). to describe the placement of a three-dimensional object in space, unless the horizontal of the force the 81. It is actually component applied by the object's utility (or intention) dictates a preferred orientation. artist that ismost evident on the canvas. 109. Steir, "Interview with Pat Steir," 5. 82. Kenneth Noland, quoted in Elderfield, Morris Louis, 33. 110. Clement Greenberg, "Recentness of Sculpture," inMinimal Art: A Crit and Pat Art 83. Pat Steir, quoted in Hilary Stunda, "April Gornik Steir," icalAnthology, ed. Gregory Battcock (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1968), 182. News 200 (February 2000): 169. 111. See Ulrich Neisser, Cognition and Reality: Principles and Implications of 84. Pollock, handwritten statement, 24. Cognitive Psychology (New York: W. H. Freeman, 1976), 108ff. as were cast to a 85. Some of these pieces, such Eat Meat (Fig. 24), later in 112. The exception here is "soaring," which may refer gravitational metal. effect, as in a hot parcel of air rising up, but may also describe birds on or planes whose flight depends other physical mechanisms. 86. Linda Benglis, quoted in Rosalind Constable, "New Sites for New in Sights," New YorkMagazine, January 12, 1970, 44. 113. Pollock, quoted Friedman, Jackson Pollock, 228. 87. Richard Serra, quoted in "Interview: Richard Serra & Bernard 114. See Cernuschi, Jackson Pollock, 135ff. Lamarche-Vadel," in Richard Serra: Interviews,Etc. 1970-1980, ed. Clara 115. For example, helium-filled balloons rise, oil floats above water, and (Yonkers, N.Y.: Hudson River Museum, 1980), 140. as Weyergraf salinity increases with depth. In unstably stratified fluids, such water a a fluid 88. Eva Hesse, "An Interview with Eva Hesse," by Cindy Nemser, in Sand in container heated from below, flow is induced whereby of smaller at the bottom move and back, Looking Critically, 94. parcels density (hot water) up par cels of move down. This flow, called natu 89. Friction and normal forces are two of the force exerted larger density (cold water) components ral is due to force. an acts convection, gravitational by a surface on object in contact with it. Friction along, and 116. See S. and in Art Studies an Editor: 25 the normal force perpendicularly (or normal) to, the surface. When Julius Held, "Gravity Art," for on a nor Studies in Milton S. Fox York: N. an object lies at rest (is motionless) plane, friction and the Memory of (New Harry Abrams, 1975), 117-28. mal force exactly counterbalance itsweight (that is, the force of grav on To it since the at rest does not ityacting it). put differently, object 117. Mark Rothko, quoted inMarjorie Phillips, Duncan Phillips and His Col the three forces normal and vecto accelerate, (friction, force, gravity) lection (Boston: W. W. Norton, 1970), 288. an at rest on a in contact rially add up to zero. If object surface is 118. See JeffreyWeiss, "Dis-Orientation: Rothko's Inverted Canvases," in with another object, as in the vertical plate in Serra's Prop, all the Seeing Rothko, ed. Glenn Phillips and Thomas Crow (Los Angeles: forces acting on itmust balance out. In the sculpture, the force of Getty Publications, 2005), 135-58. friction with the wall, the normal force of the wall, gravity, and the to zero. 119. "Recent Abstract as "The Liber force exerted by the beam on the plate all add up Meyer Schapiro, Painting," reprinted ating Quality of Avant-Garde Art," inModern Art: 19th and 20th Centu 90. Richard Serra, "Basel, January 18, 1994," in Richard Serra Intersection ries (New York: George Braziller, 1978), 213-26. Basel, ed. Martin Schwander (D sseldorf: Richter Verlag D sseldorf, Mark Rothko was a Barnett Newman 1996), 75. 120. Although nonaligned Socialist, an anarchist, and Ad Reinhardt a Soviet sympathizer, they painted in 91. Pollock, "My Painting," 17. so careful a way as to run afoul of Schapiro's interpretation. Even the See Robert "Pollock Paints a Picture Art were 92. Goodnough, [May 1951]," gestural works of Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Yves Klein far News 76 (November 1977): 164. more controlled and calculated than their appearance suggests. See Claude Cernuschi, "The Politics of Abstract review of 93. Pollock, interview byWright, 23. Expressionism," as Abstract Expressionism Cultural Critique: Dissent during theMcCarthy 94. Still, by Katherine Kuh, "Clyfford Still," in Clyfford nos. Clyfford quoted Period, by David Craven, Archives ofAmerican Art Journal 39, 1-2 Still, ed. O'Neill (New York: N. Abrams and the John Harry Metropol (2000): 30-42. itan Museum of Art, 1979), 10. 121. Michael Leja, for example, interprets Abstract Expressionism's tragic 95. Mark Rothko, for instance, declared that his works functioned as a as bend as disguising "the conditions of authoritarian domination," "a for man's new and consciousness of as "pictorial equivalent knowledge tool of bourgeois ideology," and "operating within the hegemonic his more inner self," letter to the editor, New York Times, July Abstract Ex complex process" of an oppressive capitalist society. Leja, Reframing 8, 1945, sec. 2, 2. In addition, Robert Motherwell stated, "The idea Haven: Yale Uni pressionism: Subjectivity and Painting in the 1940's (New that in Baudelaire ... is the idea of nature appears being analogies versity Press, 1993), 117, 118. For other readings of Abstract Expres that nature is a of .. . any essentially system equivalences given thing sionism as reflective of, ifnot complicit with, the American power can be a for else." Motherwell, see Eva corresponding metaphor something structure and imperialist foreign policy during the Cold War, in Robert Mattison, Robert Motherwell: The Formative Years (Ann quoted Cockcroft, "Abstract Expressionism, Weapon of the Cold War," in Pol Mich.: 14. York: Arbor, UMI, 1987), lock and After: The Critical Debate, ed. Francis Frascina (New and David and Cecile 96. Friedman, Jackson Pollock, 71. Harper Row, 1985), 125-34; Shapiro Shapiro,

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"Abstract The Politics of in Pollock and Expressionism: Apolitical Painting," lives work. Union, that's us." Jackson Pollock, "Jackson Pollock: and and After, 135-52; Serge Guilbaut, How New York Stole theIdea of Fragments of Conversations and Statements, Selected, Extracted & Modern Art: Abstract and theCold War Expressionism, Freedom, (Chicago: Categorized from His Own Notes by Jeffrey Potter, 1949-1956," in of University Chicago Press, 1983). Harrison, Such Desperate Joy, 89. a to 122. In letter his father, quoted in Naifeh and Smith, fackson Pollock: 126. The connection between Pollock's interest in nature and an evocation An American 231, his distrust of of was Saga, Jackson expressed capitalism: freedom made by Krasner: "after living in Springs for six years, "The system is on the rocks so no need to rent and all the rest of I think he as pay would have given just much emphasis to this Eastern the hokum that goes with the For an of price system." expansion Long Island landscape and seascape. They were part of his con and a of the and Schapiro's argument penetrating analysis political sciousness: the horizontality he speaks of, and the sense of endless of New York school an ideological loyalties artists, including analysis space, and the freedom. ..." Friedman, "An Interview with Lee Kras of the files the FBI on members of the see compiled movement, ner Pollock," 37. David as Craven, Abstract Expressionism Cultural Critique: Dissent during 127. to the artist Freilicher, Pollock's work a theMcCarthy Period (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999). According Jane conveyed sense of unlimited freedom; Pollock's achievement, she maintained, 123. interview Pollock, byWright, 20. a to "brought glamour and authority American painting which in 124. Robert "A Personal in ... Motherwell, Expression," reprinted Stephanie spired younger painters. If you could bring it off, 'make itwork,' The Collected RobertMotherwell York: Ox it be to Terenzio, ed., Writings of (New might possible do anything." Freilicher, quoted in "Jackson ford 61. Pollock: An University Press, 1992), Artist's Symposium, Part 2," ArtNews 66 (May 1967): 72. 125. I see we're of the it "Way it, part one, making whole. That's enough, 128. Michel de Montaigne, Essais, vol. 3 (Paris: Gallimard, 1965), 390: of .. We're. of the in our being part something bigger. part great all, "Our life is nothing but motion."

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