Good points, LW. Pollock is not reproducible. Warhol doesn't suffer by being reproduced in a Skira book. (Not too much, anyway.) Also, Warhol is very easy to imitate, parody or even forge, quite unlike Pollock.
Lightwizard wrote: I once stated that a Pollock almost looked like one could walk up to it, stick their hand into the canvas and come out with multi-colored paint all over their hand. The "floating effect" of the tactile surface is nearly completely lost in a reproduction. It's truly action painting and it can only be perfected once. Anybody trying to duplicate Pollock's technique will only be a faux Pollock.
a lovely bit of writing that really brings out the difference in quality
I've always been a rebel - but hippiest ..... hmmm in inches round them maybe I could compete
Depends on what the meaning of the word hip is is.
Hip is till 'in.' But does anyone still say 'square'? Haven't heard that in years.
Well, if you're a Josef Albers painting you're square.
It also depends on what one means by "is."
Yes, LW, that was a lovely description of Pollock's work. I regret that I have not seen one yet.
Sorry for saying that There twice... it took away the impact.
Oh, well, Pollock was criticized late in his career for repeating himself.
Pollock and Warhol
In reading through the posts on this discussion, it seems very clear to me that the comments made concerning Pollock and Warhol, on their greatness and what the commentator believes about them and how he/she reacts to them, has more to do with the poster or commentator, than with either Pollock and Warhol.
Ossobuco's description of these two painters appealed to me as the "truest" words to be used; she called them "significant". And they are!
Their works, and their approach to working, IS more significant than other
artists of their time...and their work points the way to later work, is most influential.
It is my opinion that as artists, they are hardly great, lacking two essentials that I would consider important in great artists: spatial depth
and emotional depth. Pollock has plenty of action, but no emotion; Warhol's emotional quality is nil; his work reflects the commercialism of
salesmanship of cheap ubiquitous American products.
Unfortunately, their work does sum up the essence of American culture. For some, this is enough to be called "great". And when art historians speak of Warhol and Pollock, they will be considered "great" and
indelibly positioned.
Lightwizard wrote:Oh, well, Pollock was criticized late in his career for repeating himself.
And it became a little obvious after awhile but to this day, I'd take a Polllock over a Warhol any time, as long as the color scheme worked with my decor.
Florence, your characterizations of Pollock and Warhol are on the mark.
I see more emotion in Pollock's work than Warhols. The swirls of color is not strictly a cerebral act void of emotion. Color stimulates emotion and even Warhol's colorways can spike emotions.
It occurs to me that we have omitted in this discussion Wilhelm de Kooning, who may be well considered the GREATEST of artists of this period.
His work, while representing abstract expressionism, is definitely profoundly spatial and has great emotional quality. Indeed, the power of his work dwarfs Warhol and Pollock, and makes their work look decorative and puny....my opinion,
Without going back on the thread, I think I might have mentioned De Kooning but at least I have written about him on numerous occassions on this forum as my personal favorites of the abstract expressionists. Both Pollock and Warhol created techniques and styles that were uniquely there own and can't be ignored -- Warhol having been written about elsewhere as the most overrated and underrated artist. An oxymoron perhaps but I get it. I wouldn't pass off either one as decorative nor puny. Both of them aren't number one within their genres -- that would have to go to De Kooning for abstract expressionism and Robert Rauschenberg tied with Jasper Johns for pop art (they brought it to its antithesis). Of course, that's realizing that the two combined abstract expressionism with pop. But, then, Warhol dabbled with abstract backgrounds to some of his pop imagery. He is, without a doubt, the most famous of the pop artists and Pollock the most known for abstract exressionism with the general public. Especially since movies have been made about both artists.
Pardon my subjectivity, but I do suspect that without Peggy Guggenheim and the movie, Pollock would not have the standing he has now. DeKooning, on the other hand, has a stature that is undeniable and, perhaps, inevitable. I feel the same about early Diebenkorn, but he is generally appreciated for what I consider his less interesting later Ocean Park series.
The other day--at a show of surrealist works--I was fixated by early Rothko's highly symbolic Gethsemane, a predominantly grey-ish, highly symbolic work. I was captured, however, solely by its aesthetic power (I had to return later that day to the museum to consume it again--like Chinese food). In the upper third middle of the picture there is a subtle pink-ish color (always interesting against grey) that was SO well situated that one can see the colorist genius of Rothko's later color field masterpieces.
