How useful are the terms 'realism' and 'abstraction' in acco
In order to examine this question the words realism and abstraction must be defined. How useful are the terms of 'realism' and 'abstraction'? 'Realism a word which is used meaning fidelity to life, but more usefully confined to the 19th century movement in painting, a word that is also used in conjunction with the reaction against Romanticism (Read,1994, p299). Abstraction a term often used for not representing things pictorially it is also art that does not imitate or directly represents external reality, non-figurative art or not representational though ultimately derived form reality (Read, 1994, p7). The two pieces of works to be looked at are: Stenographic Figure c.1942 and Full Fathom five c. 1947 both are good examples of the rapid changes in Pollock's work. By the mid 1940s Jackson Pollock was painting in a completely abstract manner, and the drip and splash style for which he is best known emerged with some abruptness in 1947. Instead of using the traditional easel he put his canvas to the floor or the wall and poured and dripped his paint from a can; instead of using brushes he worked with sticks, trowels or knives, sometimes to add more texture to his painting he would mix sand, broken glass or other foreign matter
It is unfair to Greenberg to criticise his interpretations of Pollock's work given that he was writing about Pollock without historical hindsight. The most obvious visual element of Full Fathom Five is the yellow spots of paint, which appear to be placed on the surface of the web. We see his reaction to romanticism he combines the oppositions of figure/non-figure and vertical/horizontal. By conceiving of Pollock through all the different interpretations of his work one begins to understand the struggle inherent not only in the process, but also in each individual paintingcommonly used to describe his unworthy when you think of Abstract Expressionism, you think of the American painter He was strongly supported by some critics, but was also subject to a lot of criticism as the leader of a style not understood by many; in 1956 Time magazine called him `Jack the Dripper'. The second opposition that of the vertical/horizontal emerges upon close examination of the canvas and the materials used. That Pollock had succeeded in this goal with his all-over drip paintings only became clear later on for Greenberg. He accomplishes this through the use of indistinct figuration on top of the linear web of the all-over drip paintings. 31) I agree Pollock's essentialism is the opposite of irony, it demonstrates Pollock's use of simultaneous oppositions. Pollock's essentialism is shown in in The Art Newspaper . Pollock's use of the opposition of figuration/non-figuration is defined by Krauss and Fried (although their interpretations differ in content). It is known that Pollock struggled with each and every painting. As a result of being on the horizontal ground at the time the paint was poured, shows splash marks of hitting paint, pools where the paint dried directly on the spot it landed, and no running of the paintThus Full Fathom, through vertical/horizontal opposition, serves as an attempt to add figuration to an all-over drip painting,In Full Fathom Five it becomes clear that the dripped and encrusted surface of which bears nails, buttons, keys, tacks, coins, matches, and cigarette butts holdsClement Greenberg, by contrast, interpreted Pollock's work in terms of visual elements, and tended to ignore the means or process of creation Greenberg's focus on visual elements, while brilliant, had the unfortunate consequence of misunderstanding PollockThe crucial aspect of Pollock's paintings, which Greenberg understood but did not discern, was the goal of freeing the picture from its traditional format. A point is made that Pollock's art 'seems utterly un-ironic.
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Acceptance Essays
