![]() ![]() While the top-most layers were created by pouring lines of black and shiny silver house paint, a large part of the paint's crust was applied by brush and palette knife, creating an angular counterpoint to the weaving lines. Its surface is clotted with an assortment of detritus, from cigarette butts to coins and a key. Oil on canvas - San Francisco Museum of Artįull Fathom Five was among the first drip paintings Pollock completed. When the canvas is turned upside down, stick figures in various poses emerge. In the center of the composition is a tablet, covered in an hieroglyphic inscription reminiscent of ancient tombs. The rooster is a symbol of fertility, but it may also recall the time Pollock lost the tip of his finger as a child when he put his hand in the way of an axe meant to kill a chicken. An African mask, a scarab-like embryo, and a rooster, all line up like relics across the top. They flank the sides, while along the bottom is a dog reminiscent of Anubis, the jackal-god of the ancient Egyptian underworld. The abstract male and female 'guardians' have been interpreted in myriad ways: as Northwest Indian totems Egyptian gods even as conflations of playing cards and chess pieces wearing African masks. The imagery draws on African, Native American, as well as prehistoric art, yet there are also touches of Miró and Picasso. Guardians of the Secret, often interpreted as a metaphor for the emergence of unconscious impulses into conscious thought, represents a synthesis of Pollock's sources. Pollock's greatness lies in developing one of the most radical abstract styles in the history of modern art, detaching line from color, redefining the categories of drawing and painting, and finding new means to describe pictorial space. ![]() These would later feed his paintings, and they shaped Pollock's understanding of his pictures not only as outpourings of his own mind, but expressions that might stand for the terror of all modern humanity living in the shadow of nuclear war. In 1939, Pollock began visiting a Jungian analyst to treat his alcoholism, and his analyst encouraged him to create drawings. ![]() Later, a series of influences came together to guide Pollock to his mature style: years spent painting realist murals in the 1930s showed him the power of painting on a large scale Surrealism suggested ways to describe the unconscious and Cubism guided his understanding of picture space.
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