Pollock Interpretation Essay

After observing the painting and coming up with my own interpretation I did some research that changed my perspective over this piece of artwork. This painting was done by Pollock only three years prior to his death in 1956. When I saw this painting I had a sense of confusion because it was no ordinary painting. It had two separate parts to it, but I knew both had to come together to convey a sense of meaning. The more I researched its meaning I was shocked to figure out what this piece really meant. This piece was significant to Pollock in a way it conveyed what he was going through in his life it was more than a simple and complex panting. The self-portrait was in fact him and so this painting had meaning. After research and uncovering what …show more content…
The dark knotted lines with no direction were key. Just because Pollock used color but chose the variety of lines to be black. Which to me when I see black lines that are jagged or just all over the place gives me a sense of frustration, rage, it makes me picture being in a dark place. Then in the right we have the self-portrait with tertiary colors like red, orange, and yellow yet there is no sense of happiness or self-content. The colors are mixed with a great amount of grey that I feel takes away the felling of wanting to see this piece as something positive. Yet in my mind I questioned myself if it could be both positive and negative. In the end the painting and its sense of complexity is the representation of a rough patch in Pollock’s life when he struggled with alcoholism. While doing research I found that when he painted his self-portrait that was a representation of how he felt when he was not sober. While the left side filled with chaotic black lines represented how he was out of control and was simply a mess. Yet he believed that all the mess he was and his struggle, could be beautiful. As weird and strange as that sounded after the completion of the painting three years after he dies in a car crash because of