WEEK 12: Pollock's work of art

Number 1 by Jackson Pollock, 1949, 5'3"*8'6", Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

At first look, the painting looks like a mutlitude of curved lines, arcs, spots everywhere: green, yellow, white and colors in that tone.

To create such a painting, Pollock had unstretched canvas on the floor and painted on it directly, from above, with precise gesture. The painting was already in his mind, he only had to reproduce it and could not be stop in his process. It was like a transe, he knew precisely what he wanted to reproduce and dripped the paint on the canvas with no hesitation.

The purpose of Pollock's painting was for people to lose themselves in the contemplation of  his work, to forget about the outside world, see and imagine whatever made us feel better out of it. Pollock's work is indescribable but full of energy, of emotions that comes toward us in a wave. He is to me one of the most unexpected artist of this century and one of the most talentuous: indeed, he is able to transmitt emotions through a work that, from an outside cold look, looks like nothing when it is everything.

In his unapologetic materialism there are refreshing and unregenerately American qualities, as there are in his effort to breathe spirit into the refractory matter he chose to make the substance of his art. These distinctly native qualities mix matter-of-fact realism with respect to materials, and an innocent idealism. Only a supreme innocent would have felt free to disregard the intrinsic appeals and cultivated uses of the language of paint, and gambled with raw pictorial effects to the degree that Pollock did. And only an idealist of transcendent powers could have won from such patently non-artistic content a deep and moving lyricism.

Jackson Pollock

Sam Hunter, Jackson Pollock, Bernard Karpel

The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art
Vol. 24, No. 2, Jackson Pollock (1956 - 1957), pp. 3-16+18-19+21-36

Week 11: The colorful art of Andre Derain

View of Collioure 1905 by Andre Derain 26*32 3/8" Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany

This painting is a representation of a small port on the Mediterranean coast in the south of France called Collioure. First in front of us there are weath fields borded by trees typical to this region: Tall with leaves only over their top that give an impression of them wearing a hat. In the background, we see a town with its houses and red roofs. One of the buildings seems to stand out more than the others, and its shape might suggest that it is a church. Eventually, behind the houses is the dark blue see that differentiates itself from the lighter blue sky. On the top right of the painting, between sky and sea we can observe the outline of an hill diving into the water. The drawing is colorful, balancing between warm colors like yellow, red and orange that confuses eyes between the wheat field with the village and the green and blue hues of the trees, water and sky.
The artist uses an all new technique of painting at that time: he mixes teh Pointillism of Seurat but add a touch of freshness in it by making it less strictlike. Indeed, Andre Derain was also inspired by the work of Van Gogh and Gaugin: the vivid colors and the thicker "points" (if, in fact, they can still be called points).

Also, Derain did not paint this to give a realistic representation of what he saw. For instance, the colors are certainly not accurate to this landscape. He painted this in hope to transmitt his feelings, the warmth of the sun, the shinning light that it produced, the breeze and the smell coming from the sea. His purpose was not to make us look at the painting but to invite us in a voyage to this place, to influence us to enter the painting and lives it with all our sensations: taste, smell, sounds of the crickets.. Through his art, Andre Derain hoped to bring us to a better place for a little while, that would last as long as we contemplated his painting. And indeed, being from France, i personally feel like taking a trip back home through this image and it brings in me warm emotions. The purpose of the author's work is then fulfilled.

[View of Collioure] by Derain, rarely or never before seen in this country, surpass the promise held by reproductions

The Wild Beasts -- Fauvism and Its Affinities at the Museum of Modern Art

Henri Dorra

Art Journal
Vol. 36, No. 1 (Autumn, 1976), pp. 50-54

Week 10: Graphics manuscript

Bahram Gur and the Princess in the Black Pavilion 1538 from a manuscript of Hatifi's Haft Manzar, Bukhara, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

This painting is a minature from a manuscript. It seems like it is divided in two parts and the down part is divided again in two parts. In the part at the bottom, there are four characters that seem to be visiting: two on the left are examining a paper while drinking a few beverages that are present in front of them and two on the right seem to be playing instruments while enjoying oriental beverages also. At the center of the representation are the two characters: they are slightly bigger than the other ones. On the left there is a man serving a beverage which seems to be tea and on the right a woman sitting on a pillow and apparatenly waiting for her tea. Her head is turned toward the man as if they are conversing. I suppose they are also visiting. All these characters are sitting on a carpet and oriental objects as candles and dishes are gathered around them. Then in the top part, there is a huge door and at the top of this door a window. From this windown, a woman seems to be hiding behind a curtain, observing the scene below her. The entire painting is colorful and full of details as for the carpets and the walls.

The artist has realized here a work with an isometric perspective. Indeed, there are no converging lines or fixed points and the viewpoints are aerial and earthbound combined so that the scene can be depicted in its totality as God might see it. This representation has a religious purpose, it is here to illustrate a story present in a religious manuscript. Indeed, it is also dreamful and help the author telling its story through imagination and dreams.

"[...]The miniature is of very high quality, and the treatment of the dome and pavilion, with the designs picked out in gray and white, is original and effective."

Prince Bāysonghor's Niẓāmī: A Speculation

B. W. Robinson

Ars Orientalis
Vol. 2, (1957), pp. 383-391