Maine State Library Digital Maine Academic Research and Dissertations Maine State Library Special Collections 2018 Recuperating Mimêsis: Jackson Pollock and the Indigenous American Spirit Maria S. LaBrage Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalmaine.com/academic RECUPERATING MIMÊSIS: JACKSON POLLOCK AND THE INDIGENOUS AMERICAN SPIRIT Maria S. LaBarge Submitted to the faculty of The Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy April, 2018 Accepted by the faculty of the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts in partial fulfillment of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ______________________________ Christopher Yates, Ph.D. Doctoral Committee ______________________________ Simonetta Moro, Ph.D. ______________________________ Kathy Desmond, Ph.D. April 16, 2018 ii © 2018 Maria S. LaBarge ALL RIGHTS RESERVED iii My painting does not come from the easel. I hardly ever stretch my canvas before painting. I prefer to tack the unstretched canvas to the hard wall or the floor. I need the resistance of a hard surface. On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting. This is akin to the method of the Indian sand painters of the West. – Jackson Pollock For Ezra, Samantha, et al. May you always trust in your creative dreams and how they connect you with something infinitely larger. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am deeply indebted to many who have assisted and guided me along this dissertation process. First, I sincerely appreciate the effort and assistance given me by my dissertation director, Christopher Yates. Christopher has a wonderful gift for paying close attention to content and stylistic details and great perceptive capacity for clarity. I began this project with research and writing objectives and Christopher has been an important guide in both aspects. I am greatly indebted to him for the many hours he has spent introducing and explaining the finer points of Phenomenology that has informed much of my research, analyzing my argument points, and for his watchful care over this entire process and project. I also thank my dissertation committee members Simonetta Moro and Kathy Desmond for their keen insights and contributions to this study. I want to thank George Smith, Founder and President of IDSVA, for his insight and vision in developing the IDSVA institute and program. His belief in me has inspired and driven me forward during the long and arduous years of intensive research and study. I have appropriated his term “recuperation” from our early discussions on this project, and I appreciate his insights and encouragement while my project was still in its infancy. I also appreciate Kent Minturn for his support and enthusiasm for my initial idea. I want to thank all who have contributed to or supported me throughout this doctoral journey: the IDSVA community of important mentors, colleagues, and friends like Michael Smith, Christopher Lonegan, Amy Curtis, our dear librarian, Laura Graveline, and countless others who have all contributed to my journey. Finally, but certainly not least, I appreciate my fellow students in Cohort ‘11, and especially my study group members and friends, Tammy Parks, Kathe Hicks, and Albrecht Mary Anne Davis and many other friends at IDSVA. They have been steadfast, insightful, and supportive throughout our journey together at IDSVA, and particularly during the dissertation process. Our regular study group communications have helped us all to keep moving forward together. Most importantly, I want to acknowledge my family, whose patience and encouragement has meant a lot to me, and I want them to know that I appreciate each of them. I am indebted to my mother for inspiring her family to appreciate beauty in all its forms. I appreciate Peter who has lifted my spirits many times during my long hours at work, and Sarah, Mary, Jacob, and René for reminding me that “we can do hard things”. I also thank Ezra and Samantha for being the joy they are in my life. Finally, I thank my friend and husband Cory L. LaBarge for his passion for learning, his gift for knowledge and insight, and his encouragement and support. Thank you to all of my family and friends for patiently sacrificing our time together while I have worked through the long hours that have passed all too quickly. v ABSTRACT Maria S. LaBarge RECUPERATING MIMÊSIS: JACKSON POLLOCK AND THE INDIGENOUS AMERIDCAN SPIRIT Jackson Pollock has long been heralded as the quintessential Modernist. His work marks the pinnacle of the Golden Age of Modernism and the culmination of a long experiment with modernist ideas elaborated by theorists such as Croce, Fry, Bell, Greenberg and others. Within the predominant concerns of Modernism (including intuition, imagination, and abstraction), Pollock is the paragon of the modernist solitary genius. However, this view of Pollock depends primarily on analysis of his drip paintings and disregards the development of processes inherent within them. This enframing critique of Pollock overlooks the presence of symbol, allegory, and ritual upon which Pollock’s work depends. It neglects to account for the fact that far from pure abstractions, Pollock’s work crosses the boundaries of abstraction in order to reinstitute mimêsis in art. My analysis of Pollock’s work views his methodology as a recuperation of indigenous American aesthetics through mimêsis. I claim that through the forms, modes, and functions of mimêsis Pollock’s work transgresses modernity’s claims to pure form in favor of an inquiry into the forms and techniques of indigenous American aesthetics, thereby reintroducing notions of ritual and mythos in contemporary art. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction page 1 Chapter 1 On View: A Ubiquitous Indigenous Icon 17 Chapter 2: Critical Modern Divisions 72 Chapter 3 American Primitivism: a Case for Mimêsis 148 Chapter 4 Mimêsis and its Forms 209 Chapter 5 Mimêsis and its Modes 238 Chapter 6 Mimêsis and the Truth in Art 292 Conclusion Mimêsis and Ritual 359 Works Cited 376 Appendix A 390 Notes 394 viii Introduction Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement. Jackson Pollock So much has been said about Pollock’s alcoholism and possible personality disorder that it is difficult to look at his art without seeing a representation of Pollock himself. Authors trying to put together Pollock’s psychological profile often take liberties with their own creative analyses. One author, for example, stressed that Pollock had a love-hate relationship with his mother. This strong assessment was gleaned from a letter shared between Sande and Charles (Pollock’s brothers), where Sande opined, “Jackson is afflicted with a definite neurosis. Whether he comes through the normalcy and self-dependency depends on many subtle factors and some obvious ones. Since part of his trouble (perhaps a large part) lies in his childhood relationship with his Mother in particular and family in general, it would be extremely trying and might be disastrous for him to see her at this time” (Emmerling 14). What is most revealing in this exchange is not that Pollock hated his mother, but that Sande was just as influenced by ideas of repression in Freudian psychoanalysis as were any of his contemporaries. This is not to suggest that Pollock’s condition did not require psychoanalysis; rather, during Pollock’s time most believed that the answers to mental illness, alcoholism, and modern angst were to be found through the process of analysis. It is rather odd however, that the critique of Pollock’s work, more than that of any other artist, inevitably addresses Pollock’s psychological self. The works of other alcoholic 1 painters such as Mark Rothko or Willem De Kooning are largely reviewed as ontic or independent entities, apart from expressions, mental states, or addictions of the artists. But the artistic critique of Pollock’s work is nearly inseparable from that of his mental state (Wysuph 10). Even the art critic Clement Greenberg, who claimed that Pollock was on his way to becoming the ‘greatest American painter,’ addressed Pollock in terms of his personality and mental state, not simply just his artwork. In his January 24, 1948 review of Pollock’s one-man show at the Betty Parsons Gallery, Greenberg conflated Pollock’s work with both Cubism and Pollock’s emotional state, “Pollock’s mood has become more cheerful these past two years, if the general higher key of his color can be taken as a criterion in this respect” (qtd. in Karmel and Varnedoe, “Interviews” 60). Other reviewers also discuss Pollock’s work in terms of “mood” using words such as “brooding”, “impulsive”, “savage”, “joy”, “pain”, “reaction” “violent emotion” etc. 1 Pollock’s work is mythic, but Pollock himself is a large part of the myth. Lee Krasner sought to dispel some of the misunderstandings regarding Pollock’s personality and his work. In an interview with Art in America after Pollock’s death she explained, “there is so much stupid myth about Pollock, I can’t stand it!” (30). Pollock was not particularly violent, just verbal and angry when he was drunk. Pollock was very talkative when he wanted to be, and when talking, he was articulate and intelligent. Pollock was not suicidal. As Krasner explains, “There is the myth of suicide. There is no truth in this. It was an automobile accident like many others. That was a dangerous part of the road; just a while before, I myself skidded on that part of the road. The state highway department had to fix it soon after Jackson’s death. That speaks for itself” (30). Despite Krasner’s attempts to dispel the myths 2 surrounding Pollock, he is remembered so much for his life and personality that one can scarcely separate him from his artwork.