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7-2007 ‘I am Nature’: Science and Jackson Pollock Michael Schreyach Trinity University, [email protected]

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Repository Citation Schreyach, Michael. “‘I am Nature’: Science and Jackson Pollock,” Apollo: The International Art Magazine (July 2007), 35-43.

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Art and Art History Department at Digital Commons @ Trinity. It has been accepted for inclusion in Art and Art History Faculty Research by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Trinity. For more information, please contact [email protected]. --- 'IAMNATU ' SCIENCE AND JACI

....-- or some viewers, certain features of Jackson Pollock's An attempt has been made to ... drip of around 1947-50 result in an acute determine the authenticity of sense that arbitrary divisions - like those imagined to exist between the beholder and a work of art, some newly discovered paintings product and process, or even between a delimited pictorial field and the larger environment- have that may be by Jackson Pollock broken down. One aspect of the radical breakthrough on the basis of a belief that his often attributed to these works is a reduction of the distance traditionally maintained between the art incorporates fractal patterns consumption of art objects and the experience of extra-artistic processes or events.' Perhaps the most significant instanceof such categorical collapse in seen in the natural world. This is regard to Pollock's work concerns the. classic opposition between 'Nature' only the latest in a long line of and 'Art'. Standing before such paintings as LavenderMist (1950) or Autumn Rf:!Jthm (1950; Fig 2) it becomes extremely difficult to maintain the kinds of interpretations of his works in terms of references to nature, as The works illustrating this article are by Jackson Pollock (1912-56) unless stated otherwise. 1 Pollock outside his studio, photographed by Hans Michael Schreyach discusses. Namuth (1915-90). Photo: ©

APOLLO 35 'I AM NATl.RE

'modernist' distinctions between an instantaneous A recollection of 's provides a dramatic 2 Autumn Rhythm apprehension of optical fact and the temporal origin for it: responding to 's (Number 30), 1950. duration often associated with art and nature admonition that he should paint from nature, Enamel paint on canvas, respectively.2 The titles of many works hint at a Pollock supposedly retorted, 'I am nature'.5 The 266.7 x 525.8 em. reservoir of reference that is tied to the natural exclamation is often taken at face value. Pollock's Metropolitan Museum world: in the case of the paintings mentioned, to relation to 'nature' is a pervasive theme in the of Art. © The Pollock­ atmospheric conditions or to seasonal cycles. interpretation of his work. Art historians, critics Krasner Foundation/ Additionally, Pollock's technique itself and the public alike frequently think of Pollock as , prevents the secure separation of art from nature. an artist connected to nature on at least three New York. Photo: SCALA It is difficult to discriminate Pollock's technical counts. First, his personality (his individual nature) mastery of art materials (his automatic or habitual is considered to be intimately attuned to the natural I v.:ouJd like to thank Michael Golec following of, or modifications to, painterly world. Such an assumption is partly due to the for his comments on a draft of this conventions) from his natural spontaneity �us persistence of romantic notions of artistic essay, and Elissa Calfin for her research assistance. instinctive responsiveness to tl1e demands of the temperament in western culture. On these terms, 1 This discinccion has played an medium).' Instead of in1mediately seeing Pollock's the artist stands interposed between the external importam role in the field of Pollock deliberate craft- his careful, even mechanical, world of sense and the work of art, and may srudies since began in ordering of means to ends - a viewer encounters convey this intimate association with nature to the !are ro comcsr what many assumed to be the modernist a visual field that appears to provide an experience properly conditioned viewers. evaluation of PoUock as the latest sinU!ar in kind to that of a natural environment. This is a central legacy of Pollock's in1mediate representativeof driven to ·purity' (a view commonly associated Perceptual experience overwhelms appreciation artistic heritage. But perhaps more in1mediate with and �fichael of technique. Arguably, it is exactly this elision sources for this idea are popular images of Pollock, Fried). in contradistinction, sec AlJan Kaprow, 'The Legacy of Jackson of art and nature that has contributed to the such as tl1ose taken in 1950 by Hans amuth Pollock',Arl Nr�n, vol. LVII, no. 6 pervasive understanding of Pollock as the best (Figs 1 and 3), which show the artist, either animal­ (October 1958), pp. 24-26; 55-57. representative of that momentous historical like in his dance around Ius canvases, or else with 2 The classic smtemcnt on modernist shift, adn1irably detailed by M.H. Abrams, from brow wrinkled in pensive furrow, at home in the temporality is often linked to the criticism of Clement Greenberg, who the view 'that the making of a work of art is a high grasses outside of his studio in the Springs associated the relation of viewer and supremely purposeful activity' to the view 'that its on Long Island, where he and Krasner had moved artwork with a mode of temporality foreign co critics such as Kaprow and coming-into-being is, basically, a spontaneous in 1942. Here mention could also be made of the . See Clement process independent of intention, precept, or even unattributed snapshot (of around 1927-28) of Greenberg, 'The Case for ' [1959], in John O'Brian, ed., full consciousness'.' Pollock is an artist whose work has Pollock in cowboy gear (Fig. 4), with a low­ CltfllmlCmnberg The ColltdtdE!!f!Y! come to symbolise an acute form of this essentially slung pistol on his hip. Pollock highlightedhis mrd Critidm1, four vols., Chicago and natural or 'organic' aesthetics. period of 'knock[ing] around' California and London, 1993, volume 4, pp. 75-84. This is an identification that has become a and his 'feeling for the [vast horizontality 3 On this distinction, sec Richard Shiff, Cizamre and lbtEnd of truism in Pollock studies, and not without reason. ofj the West'.6 l111pre.ssionis111:A St11tj;1 of tbt 17JtO!))

36 APOLLO Second, Pollock's process after 1948 of 3 Pollock painting One: literally be 'in the painting' as be himself put it) than dripping paint onto a horizontally placed canvas Number p, I950, he would otherwise have been if utilising standard has been understood as more 'direct', and hence photographed by Hans techniques.' more natural, than conventional modern painting Namuth (1915-90). Interestingly, some analysts have also associated techniques. Pollock's working methods and Pollock's Number I, I949 this directness with a child-like naivete, positioning techniques, as they developed through the 1940s, hangs on the wall to his Pollock as an artist who overcomes (or is able to increasingly rejected conventions of European right. Sunlight hits circumvent) those habits of technical proficiency , particularly those associated with Pollock's head. In the which are the result of artistic training. As a result, . Those technical innovations were upper left corner a small his drip works appear on co-equal terms with the subsequently seen not merely as unconventional, window opens on the natural, spontaneous scribbling of children (Fig 5).8 but as 'wild' (hence natural). The drip technique grass outside. Photo © Finally, Pollock's paintings themselves are frequently allowed Pollock to work on his canvases from all Hans Namuth taken to be connected, imagistically or emotively, four sides, and therefore to be more direct (to to nature. Either the paintings contain images

APOLLO 37 '!AM NATURE

authenticity. In 2007, the long-awaited exhibition 4 Pollock in cowboy dress, 'Pollock Matters' is scheduled to open at the photographed c. 1927-28. McMullen Museum of Art at .'" Reproduced from K The show will include work by Lee Krasner, Varendoe, Jackson Pollock, and , but it will New York, 1999, p. 316 showcase many, if not all, of the 24 paintings found in 2002 by Alex Matter in his parents' storage Ttcbniqut, and Critica/l;l'rllllationof facility in Wainscott, ew York. o small amount Modm1 � lrt,Chicago, 1984, pp. 14-20.

of media attention has been focused on this group 4 �!.II. Abrams, 7ht Alirrorand !bt of paintings, with good reason. The discovery of IAIII/X ROIIItl!ltic nxoa'(llld lht Critical Tmdition, l....ondon, 1953, p. 157. such a large cache of previously unknown works by 5 l.ccKrasner, 'Interview with Bruce a major artist is the stuff that auction-house dreams Glru;er' 11967J, m K. \'arnedoc and P. are made of: the market value of the set promises Karmc� eds.,)acksollPol/(){k.- lulm·im-s. lrlidts, tmd RrL'inn, New York, 1999, to be in the millions, if the 2004 sale of Pollock's p. 28. 12, 1949- Number a painting only 79 x 57 em- 6 Jackson Pollock, 1ackson Pollock: r\ for $11.655m is to be any indication." Moreover, Questionnaire' jl944], in K. Varnt.xloe the extension of the existing body of work and I� Karmcl, op. cit., p. 15. (should any or all of the works be authenticated) 7 Jackson PoUock, '�ly Painting' 11947-48], inK. \'arntxloc and P. would provide a significant platform for a scholarly Karmel, op. cit., p. 18.

review of Pollock's early experimentation with the 8 Sec J Urgcn \XCbcr, nJe j/l{(_e,mmttiN of drip technique. Ifj•e: ./1 hirlberDet't'!Op/1/elll ofGrs/a/1 Psycholog)',New York, 2002),p. 120. On As with any new discovery, however, there are the 1dea of the ch1ld-like in modern sceptics. The argument about the authenticity of art, sec Richard Shiff, 'From Primith·ist Phylogeny to Formalist Ontogeny: Matter's paintings is continuing, but it reached Roger Fry and Childr�n's DrawinbtS', in something of a high point in February 2006, after Jonathan Fineberg, ed., !JisroreringChild the Ne11J York Times ran an article by Randy Kennedy lrt l:,Sst!]Son Childbood, Pnim'lit-islll, o11d Modtmis111, Princeton, 1998, pp. 157- covering research conducted by Richard P. Taylor, 200. abstracted from some natural scene (think of his a physicist at the University of Oregon- research 9 The photograph was taken by Rudy 'Accabonac Creek' series; Gala>..y; and Summertime), that, if correct, would dispute the authenticity of Burckhardt. See Parker Tyler, 'l lopper/PoUock', ...-JrtJVtu'S Amu1t1/, or the paintings convey the sense or mood of the paintings on the basis of fractal geometry.12 v<>l. XXVI (1957), pp. 92-93. natural phenomena (think of the 'Sounds in the Taylor's work focuses on discerning 'fractal patterns' 10 After the J\lcMullcn t\luseum Grass' series; Croaking Movement, and Lavender Mis�. (more on this below) in Pollock's drip paintings, opening, the exhibition is scheduled to mwel ro the Everson J\luscum of A powerful example of the early art-cultural and measuring their degree of 'fractal dimension'. Art in S)'racusc, l"'cw York. For sanction of this connection was provided by Although Taylor did not come to a final conclusion updated information on the exhibition Art NeJvs Ann11ai, which printed a photograph regarding Matter's paintings, he is so confident schedule, readers should refer to the official websilc, of the artist painting N11mber 32, 1950 next to a about his method of technical analysis that he has www.pollockexhibit.cl>m.

picture of flowering marsh grasses for an essay claimed that he can date authentic Pollock's to the 11 This was at the rime the auction by Parker Tyler (Fig 6).9 Through visual analogy, the year in which they were made." The Neu; York Times record for a Pollock and was the top lot at the sale at Christie's New York, magazine spread encouraged readers to associate article came out on the day that Taylor's findings �lay 11,2004. Sec www.artnet.com/ the painting and the natural scene, potentially were summarised in the science journal Nature.14 magazine/ncws/artmarketwatch2/ anmarketwatch5-12-04.asp. eliding the difference between natural and artificial Although Taylor was not paid by the Pollock­ 12 Sec Randy Kennedy, 'Computer phenomena. What is interesting is that the co­ Krasner Foundation, which approached him Analysis Suggests Paintings Arc Not appearance of such disparate realms (a painting for his unique expertise and commissioned the Pollocks',lVtu' >Ork 7illlts, Arts, and a grass field) hardly seems strange: indeed, the study, his high-profile views on Pollock were February 9, 2006. The issue has become even more complicated since comparison comes across as entirely expected, even published just two weeks in advance of the first January 29, 2007,when a report 'natural'. Juxtaposition becomes conjunction, or public presentation of art-historical scholarship released by the llarvard University An l\luseums, bastxl on a year-long even identification. Such familiarity only on Matter's paintings by Ellen Landau, a leading study, implied that Matter's paintings demonstrates the extent to which we have come to Pollock scholar, who delivered some of her findings could not have been made by Pollock, since they include pibmlents that understand Pollock as a modern 'nature painter'. at the 2006 College Art Association meeting in were not commercially available until Estimations of the relation of Pollock's paintings Boston, in a session called 'Jackson Pollock's some years after the artist's death in to nature have continued to play out in the critical Afterlife' (the session was chaired by my colleague 1956. See Ilarvatd University Art l\luseums,'Technical Analysis of literature, in the public imagination, and even in Todd Cronan and myself).'; Landau's art-historical Three Paintings Attributed to Jackson scientific discourse. The relevance for Pollock argument centred on the relationship between PoUock', available on-line at WW\.\�artmuscums.harvard.edujhomc/ studies of these concerns has been highlighted by Pollock and Herbert Matter, whose· photographic 11LA.\lrcport012907.pdf.For the the recent discovery of 24 paintings, putatively by practice Landau convincingly related to some of response to the HL":\..M report by the Pollock and previously unknown, and the attendant Pollock's working methods. The argument for organisers of the Pollock l\.latters exhibition, sec interest in the possible scientific verification of their authenticity based on art-historical inquiry stood in www.pollockexhibir.com; for thar of

38 APOLLO ------�

'I AM NATURE'

5 Pollock's work compared with examples of children's drawings, from Jiirgen Weber, The judgement of the Eye: the Metamorphoses of Geometry, One of the Sources of Visual Perceptionand Consciousness, New York,

2002, p. r2o

the Pollock-Krasncr Foundation:, sec ww\\tpkf.org/prcss.html. 18 Lotte, 2 19 Lotte, 2

13 lie did, however, find 'significant deviations'' from Pollock's other works. Quoted in Alison Abbon, 'In the Hands of a J\lasrcr', 1\'alure, no. 439, February 9, 2006, p. 648. According to Taylor, fracra1 analysis 'could be used as a quantirnth•c, objccti\·c rcchni'JUC ro validate and dare Pollock's drip paintings'. See R.P. Taylor, ct. al., 'FracraJ ,\nalysis of Pollock's Drip Paintings', _Valure, no. 399,Junc 3, 1999, p. 422.

14 Sec Abbott, op. cir., pp. 648-650.

15 The mhcr participants in the session were Claude Ccrnuschi, i\largarct llolbcin Ellis, Peggy Phelan, and I jsa Frye Ashe.

16 Abbott, op. cit., p. 650.

17 Among Taylor's numerous articles 20 Pollock on the subject arc 'The Usc Of Science To Jnvcstif,rateJackson Pollock's Drip Pimcings',joumalof CoflsdoumtssJt11dies vol. VII, no. 8-9, stark contrast to that proposed by Taylor, who­ clarifies that fractals consist of patterns that recur or 2000, p. 137; 'Order in Pollock's although he does not dismiss the value of repeat on finer and finer scales. One way to quantify Chaos', Scimtific.l111 ericmt, December, provenance, connoisseurship and material analysis­ the visual complexity of fractal patterns is its fractal 2002, p. 116; 'Perceptual and Physiolo&l'ical Responses to the Visual primarily examined the works in terms of their dimension, or D. This is a number that ranges from Complexity of Pollock's l;racm.l exhibition of fractal patterns identical to those 1 to 2; the higher the number, the more complex Dripped Patterns', 7l.lf}olln llll of JVon­ linearQywttlltiu, P!J'fholog;) a11d I..ift found in nature."' the fractal pattern. To quantifythe fractal dimension Sdmm, vol. IX, no. 115 (2005). For a An expert on fractals, Taylor has presented his of some of Pollock's paintings (the article refutation of Taylor's method of scientific analysis of Pollock's works repeatedly reproduces Pollock's A/chenryof 1947, although it fractal analysis, sec Katherine Jones­ Smith and !Iarsh Mathur, •Fractal since the late 1990s." Essentially, Taylor argues that is otherwise unclear what specific paintings were Analysis: Revisiting Pollock's Drip Pollock's dripped paintings exhibit natural fractal studied), a scanned image of the work was covered Paintings', ;Yalllrt, no. 444, November 30, 2006; Taylor's response may be patterns. A fractal, understood in its traditional with 'a computer-generated mesh of identical found in the same issue, published mathematical sense, is a curve having the specific squares'.18 Additional 'meshes' varied in density, on-line at www.nature.com/narure/ property that any small part of the curve, when and were applied in order to obtain the D value at journal/v444/n7119/abs/ narurc05398.hrml., and, most recently, enlarged, will exhibit the same statistical character different magnifications. Thus, the paintings were 'Authencicacing Pollock Paintings Using as does the whole curve. In other words, fractals covered with multiple grids containing an increasing Fractal Geometry', PttllemRecognition Lelltrs/lrchil'f, vol. XXVIII, no. 6 (April, have a consistent geometric property evident on number of squares, ranging in sizes from that of 2007), pp. 695-702. different scales or magnifications. The property the whole canvas to d1at of the finest paint work 18 R.P. Taylor, ct. al., 'Fractal Analysis that is defined on the smallest scale, or the highest (about 1 mm square). By counting, at different grid­ of Pollock's Drip Paintings', op. cir., p. 422. magnification, will resemble (although it need not intervals, the squares within which part of the

19 R.P. Taylor, 'Fractal be identical to) the property found on larger scales. painted pattern was visible, the scientists arrived at ', PI!J·sirs Jrbrld,,•ol. XII, Fractal patterns, then, may be discerned by taking the D value of each painting. This is the so-called no. I 0, 1999, pp. 25-28; 28. note of such repetition at various scales. Natural 'box-counting method'. The D values for the set of 20 R.P. Taylor, ct. al., "The Visual Complexity of Pollock's Dripped objects such as tree branches, rivers, and coastlines, paintings studied ranged from 1.3 to 1.9. Because Fracrals'. Alrhough I was not able all exhibit some degree of fractal pattern. the D values of Pollock's works increase from low ro obrain a hard-copy cimtion, this In 'The Fractal Analysis of Pollock's Drip to high over a period of 10 years, Taylor's team essay is available for viewing at matcrialscicnce.uorcgon.edu/taylor/ Paintings', written with two colleagues, Taylor concluded that the increase in complexity was not

APOLLO 39 I AM ATURE'

l'lll.llllk

accidental: it demonstrates Pollock's increasing natural shapes surrounding him."22 An illustration 6 A photograph by Rudy mastery of the drip technique itself. accompanies the anecdote, showing a photograph Burckhardt of Pollock Taylor holds that Pollock's drip paintings, of Pollock's house, where the artist was 'surrounded at work compared to because they contain fractal patterns, exemplify by the complex patterns of nature'; it is juxtaposed flowering Marsh Grass, natural properties: '[Pollock] described nature with three smaller linages showing the fractal &om Art News Annua4 directly. Rather than mimicking it, he adopted the patterns of tree branches (Fig 7).2-'What is at stake volume XXV1 (1957), language of nature- fractals - to build his own in this analysis? For Taylor, it seems nothing less PP· 92-3 patterns'.19 What explains viewers' appreciation of than identifying,once and for all, the grounding

Pollock's drips? In another article, 'The Visual reference of the abstract drip paintings. The arr(faylor1CCS2002.pdf (accessed Complexity of Pollock's Drip Fractals', written scientist intends to rectify what to his view is the �lay 30, 2007); it appears as entry number 16 on Taylor's on-line with three colleagues, Taylor suggests that these impoverished situation of Pollock scholarship, bibliography: hnp:/I patterns have an 'aesthetic quality based on [their] where 'despite the millions of words written about materiaJsciencc.uorcgon.edu/taylor/an visual complexity'.20 Because we see them in nature, [the artist], the real meaning behind his infamous /info.hanl. The ICCS progrnm can be found at hnp:/ /necsi.org/cvents/ we are pleased when we see fractals in art. Perhaps swirls of paint' has remained inscrutable.24 Science iccs/iccs4program.honl, where it a basic, biological predisposition to tl1ese pleasing will- assertively, it seems - rectify this situation. appears char Tarlor's paper was originally called 'The Discovery of patterns explains, precisely, what it means when Taylor's website boasts: 'After fifty years of debate, FrnctaJs in Jackson Pollock's Paintings: we say that Pollock's paintings have an aesthetic the answer to 's greatest question has Implications for the Visual Sciences'. quality: Taylor goes so far as to assert that a 'fractal been delivered from an unexpected source - 21 R.P. Taylor, et. al., 'Fractal Analysis Of Pollock's Drip Paintings',op cit., aesthetics' would explain the 'fundamental content' science.'25 Exactly what this question is, or why p. 422. of Pollock's work.21 answering it matters, is, however, left in1plicit. 22 R.P. Taylor, et. al., 'lne Visual A key point in Taylor's article comes when he Taylor's work reflects a broader interest in Complexity of Pollock's Dripped Fractals', op. cit., p. I. !!ere, Taylor is repeats the well-known story of Pollock's move to explaining how the perceptual effects of Pollock's relyingon testimony gi\·cn by J. Potter, the Springs in 1945. In this re-telling of Pollock's works are grounded in natural phenomena, To a T1olmlCrm'f: .r:l11Oral Biograpi!J• of return to nature, Taylor relates 'the many hours that including the experience of our bodies' naturally jark.ronPollock, ew York, 1985. Pollock spent on the back porch of his new house, adaptive responses to stimuli in the environment. 23 The same illustration is Figure 1 in R.P. Taylor, et. al., 'Perceptual and staring out at the countryside as if assinlllating the Writing on Pollock is often characterised by a Physiological Responses to the Visual

40 APOLLO 'I AM ATl. RE' concern to elide the difference between the effects of the artist's work and the experience of natural phenomena. This equation sometimes takes the form of an analogy between principles of 'artistic creation' and the productive principles of nature; at others, between the formal characteristics and features of a painting and those proper to natural phenomena. What is the root of this drive? Perhaps it is the common discomfort or difficulty involved in tying abstract art to a referent of some sort. In the absence of recognisable subject matter, conventional approaches to interpreting the meaning of pictures falters; the incommensurability of description to content when considering abstract art produces anxiety. Linking Pollock's paintings to nature is a way to ground interpretation. The interpretative strategy seems to divulge the meaning of this particularly recalcitrant art: taken as either a depiction of nature, or an exemplification of Figure I. Left: Pollock's house on Long Island. In contrast to his previous life in Manhattan, nature's productive principles, a painting such as Pollock perfected his drip technique surrounded by the complex patterns of nature. Right: Autumn Rhythm attains a certain security of Trees are an example of a natural fractal object. Although the patterns observed at different magnifications don't repeat exactly, analysis shows them to have the same stati tical qualities reference. (photographs by R.P. Taylor). Scientific interest in Pollock, such as that exemplified by Taylor, is no isolated instance: there is a historical context for this type of analysis. Two 7 Pollock's house shown as actively ordering the manifold possibilities of any instances, roughly contemporary with the surge of next to &actals in trees, medium towards some end.27 interest in Pollock after his death in 1956, will have &om R.P. Taylor, et.al., In his lecture and a subsequent essay based on to serve as an introduction to this wider context. 'The Visual Complexity it, Arnheim argued that his concept of order and Firstly, in 1957, the gestalt psychologist Rudolf of Pollock's Dripped complexity in art did not apply to an artist such as Arnheim employed a box-counting method of his Fractals', materialscience. Pollock, whose paintings demonstrated only the own to contest the idea that Pollock's works uoregon.edu/taylor/ art/ features of a random statistical pattern.28 Careful exemplifyanything like the complex, natural TaylorlCCS2002.pdf to draw a distinction between 'order' and 'disorder' patterns later identified in Taylor's studies. That (the latter term refers not to the absence of all year, Arnheim had joined the art historian Meyer Complexity of Pollock's Dripped order, but to the simultaneous existence of clashing, Fractal Panerns',jounm/ qf Non-lintllr uncoordinated orders), Arnheim did not simply Schapiro at the annual meeting of the American QytUJ!IJJf:s, P!J·cholog;l and Lift Sciences, Federation of Arts in Houston, Texas. The voliX, no.15 (2005). claim that Pollock's works were just chaotic and conference featured speakers who addressed the 24 R.P. Taylor, ct. a!., 'The Visual disorganised. Rather, he argued that they lacked Co lc.xity of Pollock's issue of abstract art; in particular, participants mp Dripped any apparent degree of intelligible order: they Fractals', op. cic, p. 2 [emphasis discussed the cultural value of 'spontaneity' in added]. seemed orderless. artistic expression.26 While Schapiro famously found 25 R.P.Taylor, faculty website, To make his point, Arnheim compared abstract art to be characterised by a 'liberating http:/ /marerialsciencc.uorcgon.edu/ta Pollock's work to a grid created by Fred Attneave, ylor/art/splash.honl (accessed May 30, quality', owing to various hand-made, material 2007). a psychologist studying the theory of visual features that indexed freedom, Arnheim worried 26 See Rudolf Arnheim, ...rhc Artist information. Attneave divided a square into nearly that artists (and their critics) afforded too much Conscious and Subconscious: A 20,000 tiny squares, each one - as determined Psychologist Looks at Inspiration', randomly by a table of numbers - either coloured credit to chance, or 'automatism' (a catch-all phrase ArtNm·� vol. LVI, no. 4 (1957), pp. referring to the battery of accidental techniques 31-33. This article is a transcript of black or left white (Fig 8). Thus, the overall grid of that by the 1950s were broadly believed to aid the the address Arnheim gave at the AFA. black and white squares was absolutely non­ A rranscripcion of 's artist in producing the very kinds of material address, 'The liberating Quality of redundant (each of the squares was coded by configurations sponsored by Schapiro). Mere Avant-Garde Arr' appeared in the information that applied stricdy to it and to no same issue, pp. 36-42 jreprimed as chance or accident, for Arnheim, was opposed to 'Recent Abstract Painting' in Meyer other square). Thus, no pattern, no order, could be true spontaneity, which requires some measure of Schapiro, Modem Art: 19th a11d 20th said to obtain. This is what Arnheim found in k intent, recognised through the artist's procedures of Centuries: StkcttdPaptn, cw Yor , Pollock. In comparison with the Attneave diagram, 1978, pp. 213-26]. ordering his means. What troubled the psychologist Arnheim reproduced Pollock's Number 1A, 1948. In 27 Arnheim, op. cit., p. 32. about contemporary abstract painting, such as 28 Rudolf Arnhcim, 'Accident and the the psychologist's view, Pollock's painting, like Pollock's, was its apparent lack of spontaneity: its ecessity of Ar� [1957], Towards a Attneave's random grid, neglected the intentional seeming eschewal of order and complexity. He Prychologyof Art: ColledtdEISt!JI, production of relationships between pictorial California, 1966, pp. 162-180; 172. wanted to preserve an understanding of the artist Although he does not e.xplicitlyrefer elements and thus could yield no 'essence' of the

APOLLO 41 --

'I AM NATURF'

' 8 'Figure 15 (a random cerebellum with nissl staining, and Hans Arp's field by Fred Attneave), Conjig11ration (1928) looks like a motor cell from from Rudolf Arnheim, the human anterior spinal cord. Finally, Pollock's 'Accident and the Cathedral (1947) is paired with glia cells of the Necessity of Art', in human cerebral cortex with golgi staining, enlarged Toward a Psychology of at 500:1 (Figs 9 and 1 0). Art (1994 edition), p. 171 The amusing shock of these comparisons quickly converts to annoyance: their transparency to Schapiro in his essay, Arnhcim's somehow stifles critique. Does it really need to be argument seems to address the issues raised by Schapiro at the AFA meeting argued that Pollock's works are nothing like in Housron earlier that year and enlargements of cellular structure? Perhaps it does, published chat summer as ""n1e if the perpetuation of such specious 'parallels' is Liberating Quality of A\·anr-Gardc Art' (op.cit.). to be countered when it occurs. On his website,

29 This remark was made in 1951. for instance, Taylor replicates - intentionally or not That year, the Institute of - the Geigy strategy of comparison. He sets Contemporary An in London organised an exhibition 'Growth and Pollock's N11mber 32, 1950 (the reproduction is Form', intended -interestingly- as a severely cropped, showing only about 60% of the tribute ro one of Pollock's favourite surface of the actual painting) next to a close-up aulhors, the biologist D'Arcy whole. It certainly could have no natural referent. \X'cnrwonh1l1ompson. In conjunction of tree roots, which fill the frame of the digital The problem with Pollock, as Arnheim earlier with the exhibition, L.ancclot Law photograph; and he likens FullFathom Five (also \XIhyte, a physicist and philosopher wrote, was that his seemingly homogeneous associ:ued with the ICA, edited a cropped, and inexcusably reproduced on its side) paintings were 'inarticulate, plain, motionless ... volume of essays devoted to to an obvious oceanic referent, a picture of a investigating the relationbetween [like] the chilled universe ... at the end of time'29- natural and artistic form. lt is here that mass and tangle of seaweed.12 Recently, the Centers hardly a description of a fuJI, healthy and human Arnheim first laidthe foundations for for Disease Control and Prevention featured a experience in natural surroundings. his later critique of Pollock. Sec Rudolf reproduction of Pollock's Autumn Rl?Jihm on the i\rnhcim, 'Gcstall Psychology and A second instance: in 1958, a curious effort Artistic Form'!l951J, in L.l.. Whyte, cover of an issue of Emergi11g lnftctiotJs Diseases.'' to ground the meaning of Pollock's work in ed., Asptclsrf J·Om1: A Jymposium011 Explaining this choice, Polyxeni Potter notes that Fonn a11diValllrt in Art, Bloomin!,tton, reference to natural phenomena took the form I", 1961, pp. 196-208. 'disease distribution follows the complex, repetitive, of an exhibition that paired abstract paintings 30 Sec G. Schmidt and R. Schenk, and cumulative patterns of nature'; patterns that with electron microphotographs. To celebrate its eds., Kllnstund JVatuifomJI hrm in Art are stamped, like Pollock's paintings, with 'nature's tmd Nature, Basel, c. 1960. bicentenary, JR. Geigy S.A., a firm specialising in fingerprint as seen from [tl1e artist's] back porch in 31 Willy Jiiggy, 'Foreword', in G. microbiology, organised an exhibition at the Schmidt and R. Schenk, eds, op.cit., East Hampton'. Is it predictable that on this point Kunsthalle, Basel entitled 'Kunst und Naturform'­ p. 8. Potter would parrot Taylor?" 'Form in Art and ature?' The exhibition's theme 32 This comparison can be seen in To connect Pollock to nature promises to secure was the apparent correspondence between the Taylor's 'Splashdown' section of his reference in something seemingly tangible and website at hrrp:flrnatcrialscience. forms of abstract art and forms seen by a scientist uoregon.cdulmylorlartlsplash.html concrete. But the type of connection- and here under a microscope. A guiding assumption was the (accessed �lay 30, 2007). I have focused on the scientific, or literal, as idea that abstract paintings were indeed identical 33 Sec hmrrgi11g!ty;dious Di'setlSfJ, opposed to the metaphoric, which has just as many ,·ol. xi, no. 9, September, 2005. An in structure to natural forms, albeit on different article by Polyxeni Potter, 'Oneness, (if not considerably more) problems-i s of less scales. Paintings were shown alongside pictures Complexity, and the Distribution of importance than what such attempts reveal about Disease', which tries to explain the of organic cellular structure or inorganic matter anomalous inclusion of this painting, our continuing struggle with the meanings of each (close-ups of fibres or crystals for example). The app<..-ars on pp. 1500-01, and may be of Pollock's paintings. Here it is crucial to stress organisers intended to raise a viewer's awareness downloaded at \1o'W\v.cdc.govI 'each', because too often the unique, material ncidod/EID/volllno09/about_covcr. that 'the forms used by artists who had apparently hun. It is rcle,-ant ro note that Potter's characteristics of the individual works are de­ turned their backs on nature were in fact to be article claims to reproduce a detail of emphasised, or perhaps unconsciously suppressed Aulm1111 l?l!J•Ihtll, and credits the found in nature itself '." copyright to the Metropolitan �luseum (witness the casualness with which reproductions The strategy of reproducing abstract art of Art. llowcver, what is acrua11y of Pollock's paintings are often handled: mistitled, shown is a derail from d1c upper left beside microphotographs created some striking corner of l.111

42 APOLLO 'I AM NATURE'

structure as revealed by microphotography, or a 9 Cathedral, 1947. Enamel Pollock's achievement in the first place. So why does child's basic motor pattern as revealed through and aluminium prunt on it seem so imperative to solve them? Perhaps we scribbles, or even a pattern of disease spread), canvas, 181.61 x 89.06 em. have a deep discomfort with the seemingly endless and subsequently identifyingthat constituent as task some abstract prunting demandsfrom us: a the basis upon whjch we should bwld our © Pollock-Krasner continual, vigilant investigation of our own culture's understanding of all of Pollock's pruntings, seems Foundation/Artists Rights relation to 'nature'. This nature, after all, rrught not to accomplish the interpretative work begun even in Society, New Yo rk easily be mastered, even when we can quantify and the artist's own time under the gillse of scientific 10 'Glia cells of the contrun it within scientific (or humarustic) discourse. fact. And as such, the method seems to 'solve' human cerebral cortex', problems of reference. But what it does not do is from G. Schmjdt, et al., Michael Schreyach is a lecturer in the recogruse the possibility that it is precisely these Ku nst und Naturform, Department of Art History at the University problems that sustrun repeated engagements with Basel, c. 1960, p. 122 of Southern California in Los Angeles.

APOLLO 43