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Jackson Pollack: Meaning And Significance
Designed to help students and interested general readers to interpret the abstract expressionist paintings of Jackson Pollock, this survey of Pollock's life and art provides insight into the origins and meanings of individual works and analyzes the influences upon Pollock. Also included are discussions of the many issues raised by Pollock's work above and beyond his intentions, and how they intersected with the work of his contemporaries as well as other intellectual currents of the time.
- GenresArt
336 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1992
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April 12, 2016
In an absorbing introduction, Professor Claude Cernuschi exactly defines what it is he means by his subtitle, Meaning and Significance. Although his reasoning is too detailed to go into here, the upshot is that Meaning refers to the author’s or artist’s intent—what he or she was trying to communicate with the piece. Significance, on the other hand, is a method of interpretation which seeks to relate the work ‘to that of…contemporaries, to broader intellectual currents, and to determine its place in history by assessing its influence’. In an effort to understand Jackson Pollock’s place in the art world, Prof. Cernuschi hopes to examine the artist in both contexts, and in fact splits the book into two parts to pursue those aims—all the while realizing that there may often be a nebulous middle ground where it is difficult to tell where authorial intention leaves off, and what we read into it—based on information unavailable to the author—begins.
Thus the subtitle to the book is not arbitrary, nor picked simply to suggest a kind of amorphous thoroughness. ‘The object of this book’, Prof. Cernuschi continues, ‘is to hypothesize about and consider the complexities of Pollock’s intentions and to place his work within a larger context.’ (Author’s italics.) This is important—although I have seen reproductions of Pollock’s work that I enjoyed, when I first saw the subtitle to this book, I did not believe that it was possible to find ‘meaning’ or ‘significance’ (as I understood them on a more personal level) in his paintings. In fact, I was being purely oppositional when I decided to get the book in the first place; I thought I might pick up a few tidbits of information, but would soon be suffocated in Art-World jargon.
The tone and content of Prof. Cernuschi’s introduction, rather than suffocating, seemed remarkably lucid and clear to me; it illustrates how he arrives at a synthesis of different interpretive methods and plainly sets forth his goals. This was encouraging, and enabled me to put aside my own prejudices about art criticism. The author continued in this same vein as he began to address the arc of Pollock’s life and career. Readers should understand that this is not a biography—instead, it uses a rough outline of Pollock’s life in order to examine elements which likely pertain to his art. As a necessary extension, it also covered several of the artistic movements that appeared in the first half of the twentieth-century, from which Pollock both drew inspiration from and was trained in.
At this point, I’d like to make clear that although I’ve always been interested in knowing more about it, I’ve never had any education in the way of art appreciation, and, when confronted with it, have simply had to rely on what I could pick up superficially about the work. I don’t believe there is anything wrong with that approach, but I did have a desire to know more about it—I just had no idea where to start. So when I say that my understanding of modern art increased by orders of magnitude as I read through the first half of Prof. Cernuschi’s book, readers more experienced with the art world should take that in the context I’ve outlined above.
It isn’t that the author presented the different movements of the century and then blandly pointed out their influence on Pollock’s work—that would not have had much penetrating power. Instead, in a very concise and clear manner, he was able to impart the theories behind these movements, and how they proceeded from one another. This logical chain of expansion was integral to Pollock’s development, and the subsequent breakout into his own statements was a continuation of that process, until it almost seemed as if Pollock first independent strides were a natural extension of what had come before.
What made Pollock so important was the combination of his link in the chain coupled with the innovation of ‘action-painting’, the style for which he’s still most closely associated with today. At first glance, one might look at Pollock’s ‘all-over’ style, or his poured paintings and deny that there could be any meaning to them—and I would have agreed. But rather than define meaning in the terms of ‘what does this mean?’ it might be easier to say ‘what was the artist trying to do?’ As Pollock was reticent about this question, any examination is going to rely mostly on conjecture and inference, and while Prof. Cernuschi is very up front about the fact that this is precisely what he was often limited to, because of the way he outlines the background from which Pollock emerged, it sounds plausible.
Plausibility does not mean certainty, nor do I believe that to have been Prof. Cernuschi’s goal. Instead, now I have several new ways of looking at a painting whereas I felt limited to only one before. And that one—the purely subjective impression the viewer receives from an abstract work such as Pollock’s—is not ignored; it is, in fact, addressed as the main thing that Pollock hoped to elicit. I can respect that, but at the same time, when I view abstract painting, I can’t resist asking why an artist chose his particular methods, and if there are conventions within the painting that I’m ignorant of, and which might act as a key to unlocking the puzzle. I would hazard a guess—based on the tone of his writing—that Prof. Cernuschi would not claim to have pin-pointed the answers to these questions; rather, I would say that he provides many different starting points for the viewer to answer them for him or herself.
The second half of the book deals with significance—or what might be said to be the effect Pollock’s paintings had on the world; his place as a ‘member’ (though there was really no such thing as membership, formal or implied) of the abstract expressionists, and his influence on those that came after him. Here Prof. Cernuschi continues his chain of logic, which not only demystified me as to the reasoning behind some of the more outré examples (whether I appreciate them as art or not), but made them seem almost inevitable extensions of art movements begun a century before.
Taken together, I was inspired by the book. Because of my relative ignorance of the subject, it was eye-opening and fascinating. I especially appreciated the clarity of the writing—it is not simplistic, but it is not freighted with jargon either. This is a straightforward, unapologetic account of modern art—which, in the world I’m familiar with, certainly takes its lumps as the butt of satire and derision. Art criticism has undoubtedly inadvertently helped fuel this tendency, something I suspect Prof. Cernuschi is well aware of—yet he makes no concessions to it, nor does he provide fuel for the fire.
My only criticism is that all the accompanying illustrations are in black and white. The book is sturdily made, and there seems to be no skimping in the construction of it, so I’m puzzled as to why those in charge of the printing chose to skip the expense of providing color plates. This is an art book after all, even if the focus isn’t necessarily concerned with presenting the art as much as discussing it. Still, in the age of Google Images, it hardly matters—chances are I might have looked up certain images anyway, simply to see them on a larger screen.
I can’t say where this work stands in the field of Jackson Pollock scholarship—I can say that for me, a slightly-informed but interested reader, it was extremely fitting and well worth the time. I can be thankful, for once, for my oppositional nature; that is what led me to pick up the book in the first place, doubtful that it could possibly fulfill its aims. For me, it superseded them entirely.
Thus the subtitle to the book is not arbitrary, nor picked simply to suggest a kind of amorphous thoroughness. ‘The object of this book’, Prof. Cernuschi continues, ‘is to hypothesize about and consider the complexities of Pollock’s intentions and to place his work within a larger context.’ (Author’s italics.) This is important—although I have seen reproductions of Pollock’s work that I enjoyed, when I first saw the subtitle to this book, I did not believe that it was possible to find ‘meaning’ or ‘significance’ (as I understood them on a more personal level) in his paintings. In fact, I was being purely oppositional when I decided to get the book in the first place; I thought I might pick up a few tidbits of information, but would soon be suffocated in Art-World jargon.
The tone and content of Prof. Cernuschi’s introduction, rather than suffocating, seemed remarkably lucid and clear to me; it illustrates how he arrives at a synthesis of different interpretive methods and plainly sets forth his goals. This was encouraging, and enabled me to put aside my own prejudices about art criticism. The author continued in this same vein as he began to address the arc of Pollock’s life and career. Readers should understand that this is not a biography—instead, it uses a rough outline of Pollock’s life in order to examine elements which likely pertain to his art. As a necessary extension, it also covered several of the artistic movements that appeared in the first half of the twentieth-century, from which Pollock both drew inspiration from and was trained in.
At this point, I’d like to make clear that although I’ve always been interested in knowing more about it, I’ve never had any education in the way of art appreciation, and, when confronted with it, have simply had to rely on what I could pick up superficially about the work. I don’t believe there is anything wrong with that approach, but I did have a desire to know more about it—I just had no idea where to start. So when I say that my understanding of modern art increased by orders of magnitude as I read through the first half of Prof. Cernuschi’s book, readers more experienced with the art world should take that in the context I’ve outlined above.
It isn’t that the author presented the different movements of the century and then blandly pointed out their influence on Pollock’s work—that would not have had much penetrating power. Instead, in a very concise and clear manner, he was able to impart the theories behind these movements, and how they proceeded from one another. This logical chain of expansion was integral to Pollock’s development, and the subsequent breakout into his own statements was a continuation of that process, until it almost seemed as if Pollock first independent strides were a natural extension of what had come before.
What made Pollock so important was the combination of his link in the chain coupled with the innovation of ‘action-painting’, the style for which he’s still most closely associated with today. At first glance, one might look at Pollock’s ‘all-over’ style, or his poured paintings and deny that there could be any meaning to them—and I would have agreed. But rather than define meaning in the terms of ‘what does this mean?’ it might be easier to say ‘what was the artist trying to do?’ As Pollock was reticent about this question, any examination is going to rely mostly on conjecture and inference, and while Prof. Cernuschi is very up front about the fact that this is precisely what he was often limited to, because of the way he outlines the background from which Pollock emerged, it sounds plausible.
Plausibility does not mean certainty, nor do I believe that to have been Prof. Cernuschi’s goal. Instead, now I have several new ways of looking at a painting whereas I felt limited to only one before. And that one—the purely subjective impression the viewer receives from an abstract work such as Pollock’s—is not ignored; it is, in fact, addressed as the main thing that Pollock hoped to elicit. I can respect that, but at the same time, when I view abstract painting, I can’t resist asking why an artist chose his particular methods, and if there are conventions within the painting that I’m ignorant of, and which might act as a key to unlocking the puzzle. I would hazard a guess—based on the tone of his writing—that Prof. Cernuschi would not claim to have pin-pointed the answers to these questions; rather, I would say that he provides many different starting points for the viewer to answer them for him or herself.
The second half of the book deals with significance—or what might be said to be the effect Pollock’s paintings had on the world; his place as a ‘member’ (though there was really no such thing as membership, formal or implied) of the abstract expressionists, and his influence on those that came after him. Here Prof. Cernuschi continues his chain of logic, which not only demystified me as to the reasoning behind some of the more outré examples (whether I appreciate them as art or not), but made them seem almost inevitable extensions of art movements begun a century before.
Taken together, I was inspired by the book. Because of my relative ignorance of the subject, it was eye-opening and fascinating. I especially appreciated the clarity of the writing—it is not simplistic, but it is not freighted with jargon either. This is a straightforward, unapologetic account of modern art—which, in the world I’m familiar with, certainly takes its lumps as the butt of satire and derision. Art criticism has undoubtedly inadvertently helped fuel this tendency, something I suspect Prof. Cernuschi is well aware of—yet he makes no concessions to it, nor does he provide fuel for the fire.
My only criticism is that all the accompanying illustrations are in black and white. The book is sturdily made, and there seems to be no skimping in the construction of it, so I’m puzzled as to why those in charge of the printing chose to skip the expense of providing color plates. This is an art book after all, even if the focus isn’t necessarily concerned with presenting the art as much as discussing it. Still, in the age of Google Images, it hardly matters—chances are I might have looked up certain images anyway, simply to see them on a larger screen.
I can’t say where this work stands in the field of Jackson Pollock scholarship—I can say that for me, a slightly-informed but interested reader, it was extremely fitting and well worth the time. I can be thankful, for once, for my oppositional nature; that is what led me to pick up the book in the first place, doubtful that it could possibly fulfill its aims. For me, it superseded them entirely.
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