Most people have heard of famed artist Jackson Pollock, who made a name for himself in the international art world for the unique pieces that he created over the course of his career. He was most famously known for his use of “drip painting”, and it’s one of the ways in which Pollock created paintings that were unlike anything the world has seen previously.
Over the decades, Pollock’s art has been the subject of countless debates, praises, and criticisms, and even today we’re still finding out more about his creations as well as the artist himself.
1. He Made Use Of Fractals
In the natural world, fractals are mathematical patterns that endlessly repeat, but at consistently finer scales. It’s a phenomenon that has been thoroughly studied, and it’s believed that fractals can have a powerful effect on the human mind. They can be found in the leaves of trees, rivers, clouds, shells, and more.
Richard Taylor, a physicist, discovered that Pollock had managed to incorporate fractals into his work. Further experimentation found that many of the fractals present in his work closely resembled the ones found in nature, a testament to the skill of the painter.
2. Not Everyone Praised His Work
On first glance, and without the knowledge of the mathematics involved in the art, it’s understandable that many might shrug off Pollock’s work as little more than nonsense, and this is a notion that has long been attached to the artist’s paintings.
One famous critic, Robert Coates, revered the works as unorganised explosions of energy that were meaningless. On the other side of the fence was Clement Greenberg, one of the first critics who praised Pollock and his creations and considered them to be some of the best works of his generation.
3. Problems With Alcohol Abuse
It’s believed that Pollock began drinking alcohol at the age of 15, and it would be something that would affect him for the rest of his life. Although he was known as being a calm and collected person, when he drank too much, he became angry and violent.
Although commonly believed that Pollock only painted while he was drunk, we now know that he never touched alcohol when he got to work, as he found that the substance significantly interfered with his ability to make paintings. After moving in 1945, he was able to give up on alcohol for two years, which was a time in his life when he was never more productive or creative. Unfortunately, he would ultimately go back to the bottle, and it would be reason for his death, as he crashed his car while drunk.
4. Being Famous Chased Him Away
It took some years to become famous, but once he did, he turned into something of a sensation virtually overnight, much in the same way as online slots Chile. His work suddenly became mainstream within the United States, but all of the sudden attention did not sit well with the painter. It didn’t take long for the artist to recede from society, giving up on the drip paintings that made him so famous in the first place.
