| Artist: | Pollock, Jackson |
|
|---|---|---|
| Title: | Male and Female | |
| Date: | 1942 | |
| Nationality: | American | |
| Context: | Post WWII, NY School | |
| Movement: | Abstract Expressionism | |
| Materials: | oil paint on canvas | |
| Subject: the creative process, the spirit of myth, the existential expression of inner being. Early Pollock reflecting his exploration of myth on a deeply embedded, primitive level. Focus on the male and female, but the figures are quickly becoming submerged by a more abstract gesture. Style: Early Pollock, precedes the big drips. The gesture: mark making is beginning to become independent of description and representation; no longer painting from the wrist (the embodied gesture). Context: existentialism ("existence precedes essence"); alone in the void (alienation); the Cold War: post-Hiroshima; the Soviet Union gets the bomb in 1949; the 50's beat generation (pushing to the edge of one's consciousness.) Jungian analysis (the collective unconscious; the archetype; mythic structures embedded in everyone's unconscious). | ||
