|
|
|
|
| 
|
|
|
Alchemy
1947
Oil, aluminum (and enamel?) paint, and string
on canvas
114.6 x 221.3 cm
76.2553 PG 150 |
|
|
|
Alchemy is one of Jackson
Pollock’s earliest poured paintings, executed
in the revolutionary technique that constituted his
most significant contribution to twentieth-century art.
After long deliberation before the empty canvas, he
used his entire body in a picture-making process that
can be described as drawing in paint. By pouring streams
of commercial paint onto the canvas from a can with
the aid of a stick, Pollock made obsolete the conventions
and tools of traditional easel painting. Surrealist
notions of chance and automatism are given full expression
in Pollock’s classic poured paintings, in which
line no longer serves to describe shape or enclose form,
but exists as an autonomous event, charting the movements
of the artist’s body. As the line thins and thickens
it speeds and slows, its appearance modified by chance
behavior of the medium such as bleeding, pooling, or
blistering.
When Alchemy is viewed from a distance, its large scale
and even emphasis encourage the viewer to experience
the painting as an environment. The textured surface
is like a wall on which primitive signs are inscribed
with white pigment squeezed directly from the tube.
Interpretations of these markings have frequently relied
on the title Alchemy; however, this was assigned not
by Pollock, but by Ralph Manheim and his wife, neighbors
of the Pollocks in East Hampton.
|
|
|
