Jackson Pollack and Color Field Painting
By Kathleen Karlsen, MA |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
Of the three primary American Color Field painters (Helen Frankenthaler, 1928- ; Morris Louis, 1912-962; and Kenneth Noland, 1924-), Frankenthaler was the most closely associated with Jackson Pollack. Frankenthaler, often accompanied by the prominent art critic Clement Greenberg, visited Pollack and his wife on their New York farm on number of occasions.
Likewise, Morris Louis’s utilization of Pollack’s structure is particularly apparent in the centralized, “all-over” images of his early Floral series. In these works, the joyful, colorful images are created through overlapping stripes which cross one another in the center of the canvas and spread much like petals radiating out from the center of a flower. Although Kenneth Noland didn't utilize the "all-over" aspect of Pollack's approach, his paintings often featured a single central focus that contrasted with the complexity of compositions in the pre-modern period. In any case, the indebtedness of the American Color Field painters to the innovations of Jackson Pollack is clear. SEE Kathleen's ABSTRACT ART HERE ©2007 Kathleen Karlsen
RESOURCES: Books Arnason, H.H.. History of Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Photography. New York: Abrams, 1986. Battcock, Gregory, ed. The New Art: A Critical Anthology, rev. ed. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1973. Chevreul, M.E. The Principals of Harmony and Contrast of Colors and Their Applications to the Arts (1839). Ed. Faber Birren. New York: Reinhold, 1967. Elderfield, John. Morris Louis. Haarlem, England: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1974. Hughes, Robert. The Shock of the New. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991. LeClair, Charles. Color in Contemporary Painting. New York: Watson-Guptill, 1991. Lucie-Smith, Edward. Art Now: From Abstract Expressionism to Surrealism. New York: William Morrow, 1981. Lucie-Smith, Edward. Movements in Art Since 1945, rev. ed. London: Rose, Barbara. American Painting: The Twentieth Century, rev. ed. New York: Rizzoli International, 1986. Rose, Barbara. Frankenthaler. New York: Abrams, 1971. Selz, Peter. Art In Our Times: A Pictorial History 1890-1980. New York: Upright, Diane. Morris Louis: The Complete Paintings. New York: Abrams, 1985. Waldeman, Diane. Kenneth Noland: A Retrospective. New York: Abrams, 1977. Websites Article Use Policy: All content on this web site is protected by international copyright laws for intellectual property and may not be reproduced, used, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior permission. Contact the author for permission to reprint articles for your own website, newsletter or other publications. Credit must be given to the author, a copyright notification must be included and a link to http://www.kathleenkarlsen.com. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pollack’s paintings, created through dripping and splashing paint onto large canvases placed on the floor in his barn, were Cubist in their limited color scale, linear components and repetition of forms. However, his “all-over” structure, consisting of an evenly accented surface, was a major innovation that opened the door to the expansive canvases that virtually became the trademark of much of modern art and particularly of the Color Field painters. 
The tremendous potential embodied in Pollack’s approach did not escape the young Frankenthaler. She had experimented with working from all directions on level rather than easel-based canvases in the past, but after witnessing Pollack’s methods, she adopted this approach almost exclusively. 
