Jackson Pollock No. 22 Analysis

In the Philadelphia Museum of Art there is a masterpiece titled No. 22 by Jackson Pollock, who is known for his unique style of drip painting. He was a pioneering, influential painter in the abstract expressionist movement (Seed). Art critics usually regard Pollock’s works as images of chaos, lacking a rigid structure and harmony (Chave 100). In No. 22, Pollock employed his usual manner of pouring and dripping paints on canvas. As Chave pointed out in her essay, “there is no center in his paintings, no one area predominating over others ”(106). Spectatorship, therefore, becomes an intricate question, because of its sexually confused figures interpreted by scattered pigments on the canvas (95). In this essay, I will discuss the implications of abstract expressionist painting and the way the viewer might understand the meaning painters try to convey on their canvas as represented by Jackson Pollock’s No. 22. Paintings can be the sites of projection of painters’ personal experience from education to social events. …show more content…
This is an entirely different style of painting compared with the traditional Western paintings. In the history of Western art, sexuality is usually defined precisely by the portrayal of bodies. For instance, women are often portrayed in various passive positions, in order to cater to male viewer’s satisfaction. The composition of a picture, selection of color, the application of lights and shades, and display of nude bodies, however, are all diminished in Pollock’s paintings. In No.22, there are only yellow, pale blue, and black enamel applied on the Masonite (No. 22), which Pollock used in place of canvas. Haphazard intersected strokes, having no orderliness to obey, minimize the role of the center in the painting, which generated sort of decomposition (Chave