Why is that Important?: Looking at Jackson Pollock A conversation with Sal Khan, Steven Zucker and Beth Harris. Created by Beth Harris, Steven Zucker and Sal Khan.
Пікірлер: 100
@Keuteljansie9 жыл бұрын
A deeper form of subjectivity.. dude.. this is pure feeling!
@Moodboard393 жыл бұрын
Or garbage
@dejffjed11 жыл бұрын
Exactly. And most of the artists of modern era have been painting for themselves. That's why I can't understand those who say it is crap as well as those who relish collecting the paintings for immense amount of money and boasting in front of others how rich and sensitive they are even though they have no real sensual connection with the painting.
@rajsingharora18 жыл бұрын
i am so glad i discovered your channel....this is video no4 i am watching....superb
@brettberry3968 Жыл бұрын
This is the most interesting and revealing video I have ever seen on art.
@rafaelmiramontes79537 жыл бұрын
I imagine some crazy jazz ensemble raging on when I look at Pollock
@cherylroberts73644 жыл бұрын
Total improv exactly
@TheGlass503 жыл бұрын
Avant-garde jazz and Pollock’s paintings go hand-in-hand in my opinion.
@i_am_a_music_maker5212Ай бұрын
Ornette Coleman used a pollock painting for the cover of his album Free Jazz
@juliajane54694 жыл бұрын
Jackson is my favourite Artist, I have see his work close up just beautiful, decided to go to university to study art history, best move I ever made. 1A is my Favourite too, as well as 9A Summertime I remember being about 14 in Cornwall and seeing a post card of Summertime and wanted it and my mum said that's terrible " I said no mum that's art " still have it
@jangrudniewski31492 жыл бұрын
Your mother was right. Jackson Pollock’s art is solely used for tax evasion purposes for the rich ( you can easily look this up). Abstract art is amazing but Jackson makes awful pieces that mean nothing
@hashtagjenny10 жыл бұрын
i am trying to work with this exact piece of art as an inspiration to create fashion. This video very much helped me to understand the meaning and thought behind pollocks Number 1A.
@deletesoon7010 жыл бұрын
Good point about that they should be presented on the floor. I'm sure Pollock would agree there is no "up"! I have always loved Number 8, 1949. At first I kept seeing an autumn forest (due in part to the colour palette), but I just love gazing into it, there is so much more to see.
@Rynriley3 жыл бұрын
Whose here for an Art class? Cool video too! I never thought about Pollock's paintings in such a deep way.
@2HHB10 жыл бұрын
Janet Sobel did drip paintings before Pollock...still a huge fan of this piece tho
@alfredoulloa44319 жыл бұрын
Whats the name and artist of the paint 3:21-3:29?
@smarthistory-art-history9 жыл бұрын
Alfredo Ulloa Adolph Gottlieb, Blast I www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=78373
@JohnSmith-bw6pv6 жыл бұрын
Why? that painting is terrible :/
@turnipbug5 жыл бұрын
@@JohnSmith-bw6pv so if you like something that I find terrible does that devalue your appreciation of it?
@outtathyme56795 жыл бұрын
These pieces should be displayed horizontally
@johnrobinson44457 жыл бұрын
They are like symphonies on canvas. I tend to be skeptical of this kind of thing but, having seen them in person, I am convinced.
@Sasha0927Ай бұрын
You guys haven't dropped a new video in 3 weeks?! 😱 What's going on around here?! I'd better see some fresh content asap! lol. ❤❤ I didn't know Sal had a guest spot in this video, but I appreciate his candid, layperson commentary and questioning as always. Dr. Zucker did a beautiful job linking Pollock's handprints to cave art from 30,000 years ago, but part of me was also like, "What if he just felt like using his hands instead of the brushes and getting messy for a minute?" lol. It must be such a feeling to let loose while incorporating parts of yourself in your creation.. If I made abstract art, I don't know where my technique would stop! I'd paint my body and then use myself as a roller to see what strange forms come from my curves. It'd come from curiosity and a desire for (passionate creative) freedom / messiness I don't typically allow myself to experience rather than anything that preceded my momentary madness. Aside from Vir Heroicus Sublimis, I love that piece around 7:41. I haven't seen it before.. I thought about Japan, order and chaos, the cosmos... It drew a surprising amount out of me. That's what abstract art is for, I suppose. My life is a big question mark as always, so if I'm not back in time for Thanksgiving, know I'm grateful for both of you (and all other contributors to the excellence that is Smarthistory).
@smarthistory-art-historyАй бұрын
We just got back from traveling and are busy making videos (despite some jet lag) though they won't be public for a bit since they were made in partnership with a museum that still needs green light them. We do hope to release a new video on ceramics tomorrow. The painting at 7:41 is Adolph Gottlieb's Blast I, 1957. I am a fan of Gottlieb and in this relatively late canvas, made at the height of the Cold War, he was grappling with the atomic bomb (so you are right to think of Japan). We hope you have a happy Thanksgiving.
@Sasha0927Ай бұрын
@@smarthistory-art-history This message did my heart good the night it was written and does again. I'm excited to see your new content as ever. The Crater Moon video was fantastic! It's gratifying to know I was on the right track with Gottlieb. His piece was surprisingly discernable despite being abstract. Thank you for wishing me well. Thanksgiving was a pretty good day. ❤❤
@smarthistory-art-historyАй бұрын
Good to hear. And just fyi, we have about a dozen videos in the various states of production and many more in the cue.
@jennifersli311 жыл бұрын
Wonderful conversation elucidating Pollock's painting within the trajectory of art history.
@eatpanda1187 жыл бұрын
No one can replicate a Pollock. Even though it looks like child art at times, there is more to it than that. He has technicalities and precision.
@michaelhorwood88355 жыл бұрын
rubish
@evolution0fself10 жыл бұрын
what are the paintings at 3:17 and 3:20 does anybody know?
@smarthistory-art-history10 жыл бұрын
Barnett B. Newman's Vir Heroicus Sublimis at MoMA
@renzo64905 жыл бұрын
The speaker says Pollock unrolled the canvas, laid it on the floor and started.Did he apply gesso to his canvas first ? Perhaps some of the negative reactions to these pieces comes from the knowledge that they were created by dripping and flinging paint. Might people react differently if they were told that the artist applied these marks with a brush?
@smarthistory-art-history5 жыл бұрын
Many of Pollock's canvases were painted without any gesso. Just the paint applied directly on the raw cotton duck. In fact, the resulting staining of the fabric would prove important for later artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, and others.
@skyluke94767 жыл бұрын
A piece like this goes. Art is supposed to be you. Whatever it is. So stop caring if others like it. Your all losing the purpose of art. Art is simply for art sake!!! That's why they do it. They represent art
@therapyfortheheart12 жыл бұрын
Nice video. I like splattering, cutting loose with paint. But it was not just random as the discussion reveals.
@EyeLaughEw10 жыл бұрын
this is amazing!
@tombittikoffer4122 жыл бұрын
Perhaps I'm biased here, (because I'm a 3d artist) I see a great DEPTH to his works like 1A. He did such an excellent job at layering that it weaves in and out of itself. The dance through space is also in the Z. Amazing.
@Dao4deuce8 жыл бұрын
To me, this series of paintings always showed that, from chaos, you can pick out order. Although it seems chaotic and random, distinct patterns form. From something so "messy" looking, when viewed close up, when you step back you can see an order to it. The paint is sprawled across the canvas, in what is seemingly a disorderly fashion, but it is very well composed in its placement, evenly stroked throughout the canvas in measured and careful spacing. These all have unique dualities within them, it is still, but it moves so quickly, dancing and darting, yet immobile. It is action frozen in time. It is harmonic entropy.
@smaakjeks6 жыл бұрын
Sure, one must understand a piece in context. But, every person has context of a life and society they lived in, and they have a response to history. Only difference is, my signature at the bottom of any expression of it won't be worth millions by default. Pollock's is - by default - because somebody decided it was so. This more than anything, is what I think bothers people. I know it bothers artists, too.
@funnytortoise6 жыл бұрын
Screw you haters, his paintings move me and i love them.
@dlwatib10 жыл бұрын
The EMU at University of Oregon should have a Jackson Pollock hanging on a wall somewhere. I was on a jury committee that chose art for the 1970s addition. The piece we chose had a lot of green in it. If you wanted to, you could interpret it as looking through a forest of trees. Appropriate for Oregon.
@ordinarylestibourne22527 жыл бұрын
I can appreciate that some people enjoy this type of art, but does not in my opinion hold as much worth as 'real' art. Art forms that involve creativity with dedication and discipline. Not just creativity.
@smarthistory-art-history7 жыл бұрын
Thank you for your comment. Scholars and conservators who have studied the work of Jackson Pollock disagree with your assumption that his work lacks dedication and discipline. In fact, those who have studied Pollock's work have reached the conclusion, despite popular mythology, that he was extraordinarily dedicated, skilled, and disciplined. The fact that Pollock's work and modernism more broadly still creates such antipathy among so many people - and so many decades later - suggests that his art is very real and addresses significant cultural issues that are still at issue today.
@ordinarylestibourne22527 жыл бұрын
Smarthistory. art, history, conversation. I very much appreciate a reply, but I have to disagree as I get the sense that Pollocks art is more within the 'hipster' area of art - that the only ones who can appreciate it are those whom are deeply embedded in the world of art. Anyone can appreciate and analyse and/or just soak in the majestic works that I would contrast with Pollocks work...
@spencerchristensen57664 жыл бұрын
@@ordinarylestibourne2252 I completely agree. I have no faith whatsoever in the commentaries of the modern art establishment. The kind of art that survives and is cherished by a culture is that which speaks for itself and doesn't require verbose and obscure explanations for it. The fact that we still debate the worth of Pollock's work is a testament to societies inability to accept the standard of art that the museums who enshrine this kind of expression are trying to present to us, not because his work is intrinsically timeless.
@davidward43293 жыл бұрын
Check out his pre war art, When you see it all it , it gives more clues to his art.
@smugathlete26935 жыл бұрын
Came here for ART 100.
@ProudAmerican1114 жыл бұрын
Came here for Philosophy of Art
@brianwilliams22817 жыл бұрын
To me, Number 1A painting showed that, from chaos, you can pick out order. Although it seems chaotic and random, distinct patterns form. From something so "messy" looking, when viewed close, when you step back you can see an order to it. The paint is sprawled across the canvas, in what is seemingly a disorderly fashion, but it is very well composed in its placement, evenly stroked throughout the canvas in measured and careful spacing. These all have unique dualities within them, it is still, but it moves so quickly, dancing and darting, yet immobile. It is action frozen in time. It is harmonic entropy. Taking aesthetic enjoyment in Number 1A work is an indication of a personality disorder.
@stevenhanson60576 ай бұрын
It’s odd how people are bothered about art. As in why others like or dislike something. Then there is the artist concerned about others as well.
@ricv6410 жыл бұрын
Shoulda brought up Knudd Merril and Max Ernst use of drips before , late 30's , though Pollock was using overall compositions at times in the late 30's . Andre Masson and the automatic subconsciousness side of Surrealisim I'm sure was an influence ....Important is the use of scale , these are big paintings . Scale came from the Mexican muralists . He did study in Siquerios workshope where they used spray and let things drip too. . "! choose to veil the imagery" - Pollock
@jubileespray12029 жыл бұрын
my little sister likes jackson pollock because of fancy nancy books.
@Krawna4 жыл бұрын
I was very skeptical of Pollock's paintings but I think I get it now, but correct me if I'm still mistaken. It's like Steve Jobs creating the first iPhone. It was revolutionary at the time. Today 20 companies have a smartphone that mimicked it or improved upon it. But he was the first, and there's a lot to be learned from his original idea. So it's not the mere "product" or final result but what led to the creation of it aka "context." Back in those days, this was as close to a "story in one picture" as you could get. Photographs weren't invented, paintings were not that complex or abstract/ambiguous, and books were monotone not only in terms of pure words but also having to interact. This was a "glance that you could continually keep learning from the more you looked at it." Like a puzzle of sorts I now have an appreciation for pollock's painting. The video felt like 2 minutes long, not 12 minutes. It was *that* engaging. Thanks!
@UnoTheG2 жыл бұрын
So props on all accounts but photographs were invented! If you look at something like futurism, such as Dynamism of a Dog on a leash, you’ll see how artist experimented with capturing movement. The effects exposure had in photographs was explored in painting until then. Although besides all that, abstract expressionism came in sprinkles throughout other prominent artistic movements and so sometimes they’d be out of place for a while before people grasped the innovativeness of their work! Another example if you want someone goofy to research would be Marcel Duchamp
@differenttakethanmost2 жыл бұрын
So glad you’ve a new appreciation for the work, that’s fantastic… Really disturbed that 1948 is soooooooooo far “back in the day” in your mind that there were no photographs 🤯 🤦🏻♀️ Photography began in 1800…
@Krawna2 жыл бұрын
@@differenttakethanmost my apologies :) Sometimes I say stuff without checking my claims for accuracy or contradictions. Good catch though!
@myla6135 Жыл бұрын
There's a difference between art and artefact. The iphone or any piece of useful technology is not art however aesthetically pleasing some such objects might be. Art opens up something within you if it's good art. If it's great art it opens up a whole world. An artefact is .... useful. Although an iphone may open up worlds (ie present art to you) it is the means or the tool (ie like the canvas, or the paint or brush) it isn't art itself. So if the iphone helps you understand revolutionary, that's fine but that's as far as any comparison should go.
@mikeschneider9013 жыл бұрын
Pollack was probably the breast American calligraphers ever produced here. You really sea it in the canvases that came after the drip years. Black on raw canvass is a beautiful thing in the right hands. On a side note my other favorite "raw canvas" painters was Morris Lewis. His "Unfurled" series was really something. I have the book.
@181Ravikiran6 жыл бұрын
what is the meaning of this painting?
@nestorenriquez32845 жыл бұрын
Pure randomness
@ProudAmerican1114 жыл бұрын
whatever it means to you. It may represent our 'inner craziness'.
@thosrobert10 жыл бұрын
If you look at a photograph of a Pollock, it looks like a mess. But if you actually bother to go to a museum to look at his work, it's mesmerizing. Like Van Gogh, the poster art of his portraits look "pretty." But if you actually view the actual painting, there's nothing "pretty" about them. You see a very angry man capable of violence.
@mastersaber59667 жыл бұрын
No It doesn't look like a mess wherever.
@johnrobinson44457 жыл бұрын
The Van Gogh comparison is excellent. I was not a fan of "Sunflower" until I saw it (well, one of them) in person in Tokyo. Instant adoration. It is the brilliance of the color, depth, and sheer presence. Pollack has that same quality.
@itsgonnabeanaurfromme Жыл бұрын
Wrong. You have in your mind a superficial pop culture view of van gogh that most ignorant people have.
@keithninesling6057 Жыл бұрын
Pollock's work has to be seen directly as photographic duplication does not do his visual impact much justice. Especially the huge, atmospheric paintings. However, to "see the artist" in his or her work is an interpretive fail in that such is not readable in visual terms. Yet, one can perceive the artist's use of technique, judgments made by the artist in terms of form, genre and process and whether the image "works." To suggest that one can understand the deep roots of emotion, thought and personality of the artist in the object is quite a stretch.
@andrewdorie6 жыл бұрын
I'm glad Pollock's work leads to these theoretical discussions. But my issue is the representational nature of his work. It's, I guess, strange to call abstract art representational, but, in my experience, his work is consistently interpreted in regards to his intentions. That is, they represent Pollock. This might sound harsh, but I usually couldn't care less about an artist's intentions. My lit professors sold me on formalism early in my academic studies, &, while I veer away from it sometimes, e.g. so as to explore the way race or gender is cultivated in art, I try to start with formalism & work outward. Again in my experience, most scholars don't employ this type of method with Pollock's work. It's instead all about his subconscious & his life & his process. It's like the work is secondary. His work & how it is interpreted would be a great topic for authorship discourse. Think of Bahktin's "Discourse in the Novel", Barthes' "The Death of the Author", or even Foucault's "What is an Author?" These essays explore the idea of the author, in my opinion, more deeply than Pollock's paintings & yield a more collaborative author, as opposed to a unique individual. I don't know. I could be wrong. But I feel like the evolution of art, especially painting & literature, often seems to be informed not as much by previous schools of art or literature but by previous schools of criticism. Or, the way we receive art distorts the way we create it. That rings v troubling to me.
@keithninesling6057 Жыл бұрын
You cannot read intention in any art work. That is an interpretive fallacy. Impact and process are more useful and telling issues to consider as they are readable. There is nothing representational in Pollock's drip paintings as they are evocative and suggestive. They are a conscious reaction to and departure from objective representation. His paintings have nothing to do with autobiography or positing the artist in the work. His presence in his work is figured in the conceptual, in his execution and artistic judgment/choices. The actual art objects he executed are not "secondary" in that they are the only evidence that art has been attempted or achieved. And, the postmodern concerns of race, sex, gender social class do not apply here as Pollock's drip paintings are about form, visual vocabulary, process, material, application, color theory, genre and tradition. Art that's about art. Truly art for art's sake. This is why formalism is the best hermeneutic means to use when encountering his work.
@cedardreamsLLC6 жыл бұрын
Khan academy art analysis is a great idea
@PopExpo2 жыл бұрын
Anyone else see a group of figures and faces. Almost like a group photo.
@johndoherty49405 жыл бұрын
Ya lost me at "there's some technical there..."
@28Pluto3 жыл бұрын
Seems like you clearly don't know very much about the painting process, art history, historical interpretation, and Pollock as a person. If all you see is paint splattered on a canvas, you might as well be blind.
@Moodboard393 жыл бұрын
U blind
@ASpacetoCreateArt4 жыл бұрын
Really? You think you could create something similar? Have you ever seen one of his paintings in real life? His painting Mural was 20 feet wide and weighed 350lbs. If you could create something even remotely similar you should go to art school. You can't look at a Pollock in a photograph or on a video, you need to see it and experience it in real life to appreciate his genius.
@Moodboard393 жыл бұрын
He must be smoking something
@andrewjohn4876 Жыл бұрын
Has any one done a study into the way alcohol effects the artist . Here in New Zealand all our best artists were alcoholic and or drug addicts. Not so much these days .. but then the art is not as profound these days. Our greatest artist Colin Mcahon’s late paintings are as beautiful as they are dark and depressing. He died of alcohol related disease. Pollock famously did his best work when he was on the wagon … as soon as he fell off his work went into decline and he ended up wrapped around a tree. Of course there are many great artists who are not addicts eg Gehard Richter … but I’m sure booze and drugs do make for some mad art eg Francis Bacon .6
@thegraciecat15 жыл бұрын
If one cannot do a drip style painting just as well as Jackson's you had better become a computer programmer or something.....no, wait....They could do it also.
@smarthistory-art-history5 жыл бұрын
You can grab a pen and copy the words of Shakespeare, take some chalk and mimic the formula's of Einstein, or follow the recipe of a great chef but you would still be just an ordinary cook. The value of a poet is not located in their ability to draw letters, and the value of modern art is not located in the artist's craftsmanship alone.
@Splenda64_inc.2 жыл бұрын
@@smarthistory-art-history It’s ass.
@skylarkportraitstudio3 жыл бұрын
Do you think a gender studies analysis of Jackson Pollock’s work would reveal anything of value?
@pattybips55194 жыл бұрын
so deep
@knoxrembrandt5 жыл бұрын
seine bilder sind abstrakt und doch real und oft so schön plastisch.
@sonnycorbi43169 жыл бұрын
Painting using Musics application
@nomoreusernamesleft18 жыл бұрын
who gets revered and who gets forgotten into oblivion with this kind of painting is very arbitrary! come onnnn
@smarthistory-art-history8 жыл бұрын
It is absolutely true that professional recognition is often arbitrary. But it is also important to remember that Pollock and the rest of the Abstract Expressionists were not initially embraced by museums. They worked for many years with little recognition. Only later did they become well known, in part because of their impact on other artists and on visual culture more broadly.
@nomoreusernamesleft18 жыл бұрын
Yes affecting culture more broadly I can understand that. But the fact that a person values these paintings at 100's of millions of dollars while many other interesting artists go unrecognized perhaps ones that were affected by this, no matter how much intent was behind a Jackson Pollock its just really hard to wrap your head around the fact that its art the same way as if a artist has a blank canvas and they have a name it gets considered as art and displayed in museums A BLANK CANVAS, or a canvas with one black line. I know even those "paintings" have certain purposeful proportions aesthetic techniques but still its just really hard to wrap my head around it.
@hardcoredoom58928 жыл бұрын
Smarthistory. art, history, conversation. I hear you, Sir. I work security at the Anderson collection at Stanford University and they have "Lucifur" which is apparently a very famous Jackson Pollock. It seems to be the centerpiece of the whole exhibit. I know there's something special in it. I want so badly to understand it. Part of me feels it's an agreed-upon delusion like religion or a cult. It's not as great as they say. Another part of me feels I'm plainly ignorant. I identify with poetry as an artistic medium and I often see poetry in painters. I almost see poetry in Pollock's work, but it reminds me of the nonsense poetry of Lewis Carrol. It's cute and all, but has no real meaning. Some nonsense poets can be good, but nowhere near as good as more literal poets. I suppose Pollock started a conversation. That's cute and all, but art has to enlighten. Conversation alone isn't enlightenment, but maybe I just don't see what others see. I'll never forget the name Jackson Pollock, but help me realize why.
@jubileespray12029 жыл бұрын
cool!
@nomoreusernamesleft18 жыл бұрын
come on guys this is brand name at work.
@billbodge387911 жыл бұрын
The importance of art is one part innovation and three parts promotion. The Sensation exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum years back was made up of pieces from Saatchi (Owns large advertising agency). A big controversy was started over elephant dung and the Virgin Mary used in a piece. That created, well, a sensation and the value of all the paintings jumped. NO coincidence. Saatchi's collection became much more valuable. I think he knows a little about promotion.
@camillebossard50276 жыл бұрын
ici.la.matiere.est.aussi.importante.que.le.geste.
@SKF3585 жыл бұрын
I am a huge fan of SmartHistory, but I have to say, trying to get artistic meaning out of what could be a drop cloth for anybody painting their kitchen is just so Emperor's New Clothes. Sorry.
@Moodboard393 жыл бұрын
What? Lol
@Splenda64_inc.2 жыл бұрын
Who the fuck talks like this.
@giantred6 жыл бұрын
*cue PragerU rant about how this is not art* Pbbbt, I dig it anyway
@tr7zg.v697 жыл бұрын
It's simple. Run you'r imagination :)
@satoshinakamoto21278 жыл бұрын
blue poles
@myla6135 Жыл бұрын
Yes! Amazing! Love it.
@mrfudd13 Жыл бұрын
I like looking at this beautiful work - the discussion, on the other hand, lacks depth. Common people might call it "a mess" but they aren't the sort who would go to a gallery to look at art anyway. This discussion from the "man in the street" point-of-view serves no important purpose.