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I learned about this guy in art class last year. Apparently he's the guy that's responsible for splatter "art." My government teacher mentioned him and Rembrandt in the same sentence today, and then said that both of them were geniuses.

HOW, in the name of all that is holy, does THIS count as art?
It looks like something a five year old would do!

It's just wrong to put Pollock in the same class as Rembrandt.
Wrong! scream THIS is art!

Mentioning 'Pollock' and 'art' in the same sentence without a negative in there somewhere is an insult to art in general. He used a STICK to THROW paint onto a canvas. What the hell! Why does he get so much recognition? That is not, in any way, shape or form, art.

Heh. You won't like the answer. It counts as art because the person who made it is either rich or powerful enough to say that it is and not be contradicted.

Part of it is the age-old "people like to impress other people with how much they understand modern art." It's like the fictional subjects oohing and aahing over their nude emperor's nonexistent robes. They support each other in the lie. If Jackson's work were re-declared stupid, the purchasers of his art would be invalidated...which must not happen at any cost! So the avant-garde artists and those who support them continue to make and do - it helps them to feel as if they are contributing something worthwhile to society and are a cut above the rest.


In defense of modern art: I think it does have a place. Modern human doesn't want to have to think during the hurly-burly of the day. Slapping giant, meaningless art on hotel walls and offices decorates without involving the viewer and makes the place look modern, but stand for nothing. Kind of like the way Ayn Rand's Roark thought of architecture. The mindlessness is peaceful.

Oh, and that painting at the top looks like a hair clot.

He also used a bicycle to paint. He'd poke holes in the bottoms of two tins of paint, put each them on the handle bars, and ride over the canvas.

Rembrandt is also overrated.
In art, technical ability is all that appeals to most viewers.
His subjects and style are outdated. The characters are stiff and the lighting artificial (and natutrally doesn't make sense).

Splatter paintings are actually difficult to do. All the elements in painting something such as realism have to be considered for stupid globs of paint. Colour, negative space, line, etc. A five year old, and most people, couldn't do that properly/aesthetically.

I used to hate Pollock too. I considered it filthy he could get away with doing that. But when I went to the MoMA in New York, the Pollock painting was one of the only things that really impressed me. Aesthetically, it was genius. It was enormous and had more energy than anything in the building. Everything else looked just like it would in a text book... Van Gogh's Sunflowers was a tiny piece of wood on a wall and not very impressive at all. The whole point of Pollock's "art" was movement, and that the paint was the subject.

They are out-dated in terms of how they were viewed then compared to now. Those techniques and elements that Rembrandt concentrates on were considered genius attempts back then, but our knowledge of painting and drawing today makes mere technical skill not as important as incorporating new styles and techniques in art. Thats what modern art is about.
There are three ways to translate or say something visually in art: the first is using symbols, which hardly gets past stick figures and little eyeballs. The second is using all the elements of design and drawing to pretty much translate what you see into the same language it was before (realism). The third is taking all the elements but using them to say or convey something different visually than what we normally see. Splatter, surrealism, expressionism, etc. Most take a lot more skill and rapid-firing synapses than to just convey something that looks the same when you see it. Its kind of like when someone says something to you in a different language but you still understand them (sometimes, you don't though...).
Its a lot easier to draw things realistically then people think. Its just about getting into the habit of using the right thought processes but that is a WHOLE different speech about brain functions.

But it usually does come down to preference. I'm not going to waste my time in art school just making splatter paintings. A) I don't think I could do it properly and B) I would get tired of the same thing over and over again.

Its just a modern art museum or gallery. Some kind of building.
I don't think hes overrated, but I think he gets publicity and popularity for the wrong reasons. It seems to be enough for people that he was the first person to paint like this, or at least successfully, and do things differently. As opposed to the work he makes himself.

Yes out-dated chronologically. Pollock was doing something different, Rembrandt was not. Someone painting Dutch realism today would not make a lot of money doing much more than illustration.


- Hommage to a Square (at least one of them) by Josef Albers
This is where I draw the line with art. The colours alone make me sick.
Even the composition is appalling. But whatever. Its all relative I guess. I'm sure someone has a bathroom to put this in.

I found it actually doesn't. Chiaroscuro involves a bit of training, but its actually not that hard (if you concentrate on technical skill religiously) to get good at it. I've seen people get 'trianed' like that in a month. Not all the way to Rembrandt, he figured out how to become talented like that himself, and quickly deviated to something more skilled than just 'showing off' technical ability. Its got something to do with the way your right brain processes visually as opposed to the left.

Yeah but my idea and understanding of an advanced composition is using more than just flat out realism to translate something visually but to create something more than simply what we see.

He made money off of it because he was the first person to do that.