Jackson Pollock’s ‘Number 1 1948’

I was first drawn to Jackson Pollock’s ‘Number 1 1948’ for its hectic and chaotic look and feel. The paint appears to be thrown across the canvas quickly, which gives off a sense of energy and shows the movement involved in making the piece. I find that ‘Number 1 1948’ is a painting that as you look at it, you can almost picture it being made. I can imagine Jackson Pollock dancing around his canvas and throwing these marks across the room. In fact, in my mind I am instantly drawn back to an image of myself painting my own work, as I use to same sort of technique.

The thought of exploring the act of painting, exploring the flow of paint and its behaviour and the idea of opening the subconscious while painting intrigues me. Whether or not Jackson Pollock was doing this for definite I don’t know, but I do believe that ‘Number 1 1948’ is portraying this thought. I can look at this painting and admire the quality of the paint; the nature of the marks made and the exertion of Jackson Pollock’s physical energy while painting. I have noticed that the painting almost has its own rhythm and wondered whether Jackson Pollock subconsciously gives his paintings each a different rhythm in the marks. I am firmly in the belief that the act of painting is as important as the final product made; and therefore am attracted to this painting, as it is showing the energy that was put into it.

When we look at paintings, most of the time we forget that they are paintings. I think ‘Number 1 1948’ reminds us that it is a painting, as there isn’t really a subject matter but the movement of the paint itself. The handprints at the top of the piece reinforce the idea that this is just a painting. Also, I believe it shows that within a painting there is a connection to the artist. I think this painting as a whole does this, with the handprints along with the marks that make us connect with the process of painting. The gestures have been thrown across the canvas, trying to reach across it. In a way this is the same impression that the handprints give, as they are placed as if a person was reaching up across the canvas. This also reminds us of the size of the painting, as we can forget that this painting is quite big due to the larger sizes of some of Jackson Pollock’s other paintings. As well as being smaller than some of Pollock’s other paintings, this painting can also seem less controlled and more wild. The gestures are larger and more energetic.

I have been reading texts by different authors about Jackson Pollock and ‘Number 1 1948’ in particular. Two texts I have been interested in are T.J. Clark’s ‘The Unhappy Unconsciousness’ and Robert Rosenblum’s ‘The Abstract Sublime’. In ‘The Unhappy Unconsciousness’, T.J. Clark talks about ‘Number 1 1948’ in great detail. He believes ‘Number 1 1948’ to be a great painting, and the moment in modernism in which the forms and limits of depiction were laid out most completely. He also believes that the painting has a scale and velocity that leaves the world behind; something abstract expressionism has set out to do. There is so much energy put into this painting and velocity is achieved by this and the quickness of the marks made. A point that I can very much agree with is that ‘Number 1 1948’ is a “thrown” painting. The marks look as if they have been hurled across the canvas as fast and far and they can go; adding to the whole velocity and energy of the painting. T.J. Clark also states that in ‘Number 1 1948’ the line is “turned aside from it’s normal behaviour”. I find this to be true. The lines in Jackson Pollock’s paintings act differently from others.

T.J. Clark states that he believes ‘Number 1 1948’ has a histrionic quality. I believe that Jackson Pollock’s work is also about the process of making the pieces as well as the final paintings themselves. The histrionic quality of ‘Number 1 1948’ make the viewer almost visualise Jackson Pollock dancing around the piece as he throws marks across the canvas. It also gives off a certain physicality. T.J. Clark talks a lot about the handprints at the top of the painting, and how they are placed as if Jackson Pollock were reaching up as far as his arms would go. This reminds us that this is just a painting, and also the medium is forced upon us. T.J. Clark also goes on to say that the physical limits of painting are subsumed in a wild metaphysical dance and that the painting condenses a whole possibility of painting at a certain moment into two or three marks. The marks he is referring to are the large marks that look like they were probably the last to take place. Viewers tend not to look beyond the top layer of line in this painting.

In the second text I looked at, ‘The Abstract Sublime’, Robert Rosenblum talks about the sublime, and his theories on how it can be achieved. Rosenblum describes sublime as “an aesthetic category that suddenly acquires fresh relevance in the face of the most astonishing summits of pictorial heresy attained in America”. He says that the sublime can be achieved by things such as a greatness of dimension and unleashed power. ‘Number 1 1948’ certainly has that unleashed power in its whirlwind marks. The marks, according to Rosenblum, have superhuman turbulence that immediately plunge you into divine fury. He also says that magnitude can help produce the sublime. The size of ‘Number 1 1948’ is engulfing and you can get lost in its web of inexhaustible energy.

‘Number 1 1948’ was done during the Abstract Expressionism movement, which can sometimes be known as Action Painting. Action Painting became the designation under which new informal abstract art of the 1940s-1950s first became known in English language criticism. It then gradually became known as Abstract Expressionism. For Action Painters, nothing should get in the way of the act of painting. The canvas becomes an arena to act and becomes an event rather than just a painting. It gets meaning from its role as the painter acts. This makes the painting inseparable from the biography of the artist, as movement and painting comes from the subconscious. It can signify a ‘moment’ in his life. For me, action painting is about painting just to paint. Action Painting and Abstract Expressionism rely on spontaneity and haphazard effects.

Abstract Expressionism has many influences from Cubist work. In 1930s-1940s America, Matisse, Picasso, Mondrian and Leger were popular in New York. What was unrealised in Picasso became an important incentive for American painters, including Jackson Pollock. Jackson Pollock was very much a late cubist, according to Clement Greenberg. He was an easel painter to start with, and then began to be inspired by the work of Janet Sobel with their ‘all over’ feel. From Cubism you can see a gradual withdrawal from the task of representing reality. By the time we get to Abstract Expressionism, the paintings are just marks of paint and movement of the artists. There is also some influence from Surrealism, as the paintings are made from the subconscious.

The Abstract Expressionism movement started just after World War 2 and ‘Number 1 1948’ was created only a couple of years after the war had ended. The war might have had something to do with the sudden impatience and a refusal of values in art. The art became a gesture of liberation, and liberation from the object meant liberation from society and the art already there. Art became more free. In this way, Abstract Expressionism could be seen as avant-garde.

In Clement Greenberg’s writings, the avant-garde is an escape from ideas, a revolt against literature and an opposition to the bourgeois society. The avant-garde felt itself responsible only for the values of art. Clement Greenberg also talked about the avant-garde wanting to replicate the effects of music, as the advantage of music was that it was an ‘abstract’ art form; an art of ‘pure form’, which shows the physical quality of the medium. You can see this in ‘Number 1 1948’, as it shows the physical quality of paint. Clement Greenberg was a critic who saw Jackson Pollock’s style of painting as a ‘pure form’, as it had a primitive feeling, like children’s art and oriental art do. Clement Greenberg believes that the avant-garde detaches itself from society and keeps culture moving in the midst of an ideological confusion. This was the role that Abstract Expressionism and ‘Number 1 1948’ played at the end of the second World War.

I believe that ‘Number 1 1948’ may have played a significant role in the Cold War as a symbolism for freedom. Stalinists found Abstract Expressionist art hard to use for propaganda, but America used this kind of art as a symbol for freedom in a capitalist society. This was because the artists were American and the art had free movement and paintings free of subject matters.