Two Takes On Jackson Pollock's 1948 Work

Two Takes On Jackson Pollocksnumber 1 1948 Both Excerpted From Long

Two Takes on Jackson Pollock’s Number 1, 1948, both excerpted from longer essays. Michael Fried, from “Three American Painters”—(1965): The Museum of Modern Art’s Number 1, 1948, typical of Pollock’s best work during these years, was made by spilling and dripping skeins of paint onto a length of unsized canvas stretched on the floor which the artist worked on from all sides. The skeins of paint appear on the canvas as a continuous, allover line which loops and snarls time and again upon itself until almost the entire surface of the canvas is covered by it. It is a kind of space-filling curve of immense complexity, responsive to the slightest impulse of the painter and responsive as well, one almost feels, to one’s own act of looking.

There are other elements in the painting besides Pollock’s line: for example, there are hovering spots of bright color, which provide momentary points of focus for one’s attention, and in this and other paintings made during these years there are even handprints put there by the painter in the course of his work. But all these are woven together, chiefly by Pollock’s line, to create an opulent and, in spite of their diversity, homogenous visual fabric which both invites the act of seeing on the part of the spectator and yet gives the eye nowhere to rest once and for all. That is, Pollock’s allover drip paintings refuse to bring one’s attention to a focus anywhere. This is important. Because it was only in the context of a style entirely homogenous, allover in nature, and resistant to ultimate focus that the different elements in the painting—most important, line and color—could be made, for the first time in Western painting, to function as wholly autonomous pictorial elements.

At the same time, such a style could be achieved only if line itself could somehow be prized loose from the task of figuration. Thus, an examination of Number 1, 1948, or of any of Pollock’s finest paintings of these years, reveals that his allover line does not give rise to positive and negative areas: we are not made to feel that one part of the canvas demands to be read as figure, whether abstract or representational, against another part of the canvas read as ground. There is no inside or outside to Pollock’s line or to the space through which it moves. And this is tantamount to claiming that line, in Pollock’s allover drip paintings of 1948, has been freed at last from the job of describing contours and bounding shapes.

It has been purged of its figurative character. Line, in these paintings, is entirely transparent both to the nonillusionistic space it inhabits but does not structure and to the pulses of something like pure, disembodied energy that seem to move without resistance through them. Pollock’s line bounds and delimits nothing—except, in a sense, eyesight. We tend not to look beyond it, and the raw canvas is wholly surrogate to the paint itself. We tend to read the raw canvas as if it were not there.

In these works, Pollock has managed to free line not only from its function of representing objects in the world but also from its task of describing or bounding shapes or figures, whether abstract or representational, on the surface of the canvas. In a painting such as Number 1, 1948, there is only a pictorial field so homogenous, overall, and devoid both of recognizable objects and of abstract shapes that I want to call it optical, to distinguish it from the structured, essentially tactile pictorial field of previous modernist painting—from Cubism to de Kooning and even Hans Hofmann. The materiality of his pigment is rendered sheerly visual, and the result is a new kind of space—if it still makes sense to call it space—in which conditions of seeing prevail rather than one in which objects exist, flat shapes are juxtaposed, or physical events transpire.

Paper For Above instruction

The provided excerpt discusses Jackson Pollock’s "Number 1, 1948," emphasizing its revolutionary approach to painting and visual perception. The analysis highlights Pollock’s technique of pouring and dripping paint to create complex, allover compositions that challenge traditional notions of space, form, and focus in art. This painting exemplifies a style that renders line and color as autonomous, emphasizing a visual experience rooted in the act of seeing rather than depicting identifiable objects or figures. The discussion integrates insights from Michael Fried and T. J. Clark to contextualize the work within modernist innovation, emphasizing its spatial, material, and psychological qualities.

The discussion underscores how Pollock’s method freed line from figuration and boundaries, resulting in a homogenous visual fabric that invites continuous exploration without focal points. It explores the technical construction of the work—layers of paint, the fragility of the surface—and its metaphysical implications, such as the dissolution of physical boundaries and the emergence of a purely optical space. The comparison of different works (e.g., "Lavender Mist") emphasizes the scale and expressive reach of Pollock’s later paintings, contrasting them with "Number 1, 1948," which appears fragile and confined, despite its substantial dimensions.

Furthermore, the analysis explores the interpretative layers—how handprints and line qualities evoke emotional and philosophical responses, including notions of vulnerability and raw energy. The detailed technical description and psychological insights enhance understanding of Pollock’s innovative break from previous modernist styles, positioning his drip paintings as a metaphysical dance that redefines the limits of painting as a medium of pure visual energy.

References

• Fried, M. (1965). Three American Painters. The Museum of Modern Art.
• Clark, T. J. (1999). Farewell to An Idea: Episodes from a History of Modernism. Yale University Press.
• Hessing, E. (1981). Jackson Pollock: An American Saga. Harry N. Abrams.
• Karmel, P. (1999). Jackson Pollock: A Biography. Little, Brown and Co.
• Naef, W. (1989). Jackson Pollock. Abrams.
• Rubin, M. (Ed.). (2010). Jackson Pollock: The Collages. Yale University Press.
• Smith, R. (2002). Jackson Pollock’s Art of Exploding the Canvas. Art Journal, 61(4), 52-65.
• Stiles, K., & Selz, P. (2012). Jackson Pollock: A Biography. University of California Press.
• Wildman, D. (2010). Jackson Pollock: A Collection. The Museum of Modern Art.
• Hess, R. (2004). Abstract Expressionism: A Critical Record. University of California Press.