Art history and contemporary practice

¶ … Convergence" by Jackson Pollock -- Jack the Dripper's masterpiece of technique and meaning

Although abstract impressionism often causes viewers to sneer that they too could do 'that,' in other words, abstractly scatter paint on a canvas, the deliberation of design and the ideas behind the 1952 work of "Convergence" by the mature Jackson Pollock suggests otherwise. When one gazes at the massive canvas, something beyond mere painterly splattering is clearly 'going on' because of the artist's use of his considerable technical skills and his ideological agenda in creating this masterpiece of abstract expressionism.

First of all, the technical deliberation of the work is reflected in its title -- "Convergence." The chaos of the color deliberately fails to come together in a kind of overwhelming busyness, in a way that creates a sense of 'modern life' to the viewer's eye. Everything in the color splattering is chaotic and disconnected. Lines and splashes cross one another -- yet do not come together. Things on the canvas seem to be interconnected but are not connected, like the convergence of city life. This sense of sprawl and splash is the result of the artist's higher consciousness and deliberation in his use of color and line. Convergence and a sense of disconnection, does not merely emerge from every canvas with a few haphazard colors trailed across its surface.