Jackson Pollock's Convergence as Fine Art - Essay Example

Jackson Pollock's Convergence as Fine Art Jackson Pollock is one of America's renowned and influential expressionist painters famous forinnovative "action paintings". His masterpieces showcase multicolored drips and splashes of paint on large scale canvases, at times with a heavy mixture of sand, broken glass and other foreign matter. Pollock challenged the traditional use of easel and brush and instead manipulated his paintings with sticks, trowels and knives-without touching the surface of the canvas.

His signature technique made him a commanding figure in 20th century art. Pollock was profiled as "the greatest living American artist" in 1951. Time magazine nicknamed him "Jack the Dripper" in 1956. In 1973, his 1952 painting of Blue Poles was purchased by the Australian government for an outstanding amount of US$2 million-that time the highest price ever paid for a contemporary work of art. His paintings are currently valued up to US$40 million. Only works by Rembrandt, Velazquez and da Vinci had commanded more respect and higher prices in the art market (Taylor).

Another of Pollock's most well-known pieces is Convergence (1952, oil on canvas, 93 1/2 x 155 inches, exhibited in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York). The Springbok Company introduced Convergence as a jigsaw puzzle in 1965. The 340-piece jigsaw puzzle was billed as "the world's most difficult jigsaw puzzle" as hundreds of thousands of Americans struggled to piece together the reproduction of Pollock's complex art. As Jackson Pollock rose to fame and to a significant reputation in the world of art, some critics argued whether his paintings were really "art", or just mere paint drips on canvas.

The seemingly simple act Pollock performed fuelled controversies and split the public opinion. His masterworks triggered discussions whether his style was raw genius or was his work an arbitrary composition of paint brought about by a drunken state. The definition of art is frequently the issue of debate and argument. What constitutes its nature and qualities is a complicated matter. Who is authorized to define art is also a subject of disputations as experts in different fields of art suggest varying definitions.

Therefore, it is vital to first define fine art to determine if Pollock's works, particularly Convergence, fall in that category. The American Heritage Dictionary defines fine art as an art produced or intended primarily for beauty rather than utility. Pollock's masterpieces evidently exhibit a style that reflected the aesthetic concerns of his time. Convergence is completely abstract or considered as non-objective art (with no recognizable objects from the real world) whose purpose is to create expression and emotion.

Art theorists now recognize his patterns as a revolutionary approach to aesthetics (Taylor). Although his paintings are completely abstract, Pollock usually had an idea of how he wanted a particular piece to appear. He contended that there is no accident, "I can control the paint," he says. Physicist and art historian Richard Taylor argues that Pollock's work is not the random visual chaos that his critics derided, but instead reflects the logic of chaos theory and fractal geometry. That is, unlike other spontaneous-drip artists, Pollock created canvases with a single dominant pattern that is repeated, at various magnifications, throughout (Freund, 2002).

Computer analysis of Pollock's paintings showed that his poured trajectories to be composed of intricate fractal patterns interpreted as remarkable artistic talent. References Freund, Charles Paul (2002). Reason. Retrieved August 9, 2006, from Find Articles. Web site: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1568/is_11_33/ai_84246690 Jackson Pollock. Retrieved August 9, 2006, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_Pollock Mc Bride, Richard. (2000).

Telecommunications International. Retrieved August 9, 2006, from Find Articles. Web site: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0IUL/is_7_38/ai_n6175564 Taylor, Richard. Authenticating Pollock Paintings Using Fractal Geometry. Retrieved August 9, 2006, from University of Oregon. Web site: http://www.uoregon.edu/msiuo/taylor/art/TaylorSubmission.pdf. Taylor, Richard. Jack the Dripper. Retrieved August 9, 2006, from Fractal Expressionism. Web site: http://www.uoregon.edu/msiuo/taylor/art/jack.

html The American Heritage Dictionary of the English language, Fourth Edition. Copyright 2000 Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company.