Aims Goals Jackson Pollock What Significant Work

¶ … Prime Minister briefing " Should U.S. support European unification? "Dwight D. Elsenhower 1957 Since Jackson Pollock painted in a number of different styles and genres during his lifetime, it is with some difficulty that one can identify his aims and goals. During his career which began in earnest during the 1930's and spanned until his death in the 1960's, Pollock produced works that were indicative of cubism, surrealism, and abstract expressionism.

However, it was his innovations in the Abstract Expressionist mode of paintings that enabled him to garner the most fame, and for which his name and works are still acclaimed today. As such, it would be accurate to state that the overall significance of Pollock's work lies in the fact that he was able to use them to express -- in approaches that were novel at the time -- virtually everything about a painter, including his conscious and unconscious mind.

Still, it would not be unfair to acknowledge the evolution of Pollock's works which began when he took up painting at the Art Students League in the late 1920's. In his early years he was involved with various aspects of surrealism and Regionalism, which led him to produce works in which his aims were to portray reality not as it was but as the painter himself conceived of it. Pollock's eventual progression to Abstract Expressionism was merely a continuation of this trend.

This genre of painting, of which he is the initial purveyor and unquestionable innovator, enables the artist uninhibited freedom in expressing ideas that may not be based on reality at all, or are so in a way that is not discernible to the viewer. Pollock's abstract art allowed him to convey thoughts and sentiments that might not have had any basis in reality -- or at least in creating a portrayal of what that reality was.

Therefore, in order to acknowledge the significance of such works, it is crucial to deconstruct the methodology employed by the painter in creating them. Pollock's methods labeled him a maverick in the world of painting. He readily eschewed conventional tools such as easels and, on more than one occasion, even paintbrushes.

Instead, he would spread his canvases on the floor and use a variety of methods to litter them with paint -- pouring it, dripping it, or using other make-shift tools such as knives or sticks to convey the paint onto the surface. He would also use these unconventional tools to manipulate the paint once it was on the canvas; Pollock would use everyday objects to move the paint around such as glass or even pieces of sand. Pollock's goals in using such a highly unusual method of painting were multifold.

For one, he was hoping to convey a sense of action with the works themselves. Traditionally, paintings are stationary. Yet Pollock's use of action painting helped to illustrate motion and sensations that were merely alluded to in other styles of art. The effect was two-fold: it enabled Pollock to express his conscious desires, as well as an element of his unconscious desire in a decidedly.