Autumn Rhythm (Number 30)

Autumn rhythm
	Jackson Pollock , 1950
	Enamel paint on canvas
	266.7 × 525.8 cm
	Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York City Link to the picture; (please note copyrights )

Autumn Rhythm (Number 30) ( German Autumn Rhythm (Number 30) ) is a large-scale abstract paintings by the American painter Jackson Pollock in 1950, which today is owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is. Similar to other works from the artist's late phase since 1947, such as No. 5, 1948 , the picture was created in the style of Abstract Expressionism , by dripping or spraying paint onto a surface, here a canvas .

Image description

The painting has a total size of 266.7 centimeters in height and 525.8 centimeters in width, making it a very large picture. The background of the picture is sand-colored, on which there are patterns, spots and lines in black, white, slate blue and a light cocoa brown, which fill the entire canvas and which are created by dripping and splashing the paint onto the canvas in the typical Pollock style of action painting were brought. The resulting pattern is largely random, but due to the repetition of certain shapes, it appears to be regular, which has led contemporary critics to refer to the images as “wallpaper patterns”.

The frame was incorporated into the picture design as a boundary in such a way that only a few lines seem to overlap and point outwards, which leads to a concentration on the center of the picture. The lines and spots cover each other in several layers, apparently creating a complex spatial movement and depth, comparable to a galaxy according to Milton Brown. Due to the size of the image, the viewer can be close up in the middle of the galaxy, and from a distance observe the same as the Milky Way . Brown further writes that the painting in the picture is transformed into a drawing by Pollock's way of bringing the color to the canvas, which, by losing the task of having to redraw shapes, represents a kind of calligraphy .

Emergence

For Pollock, the turn to purely abstract painting in the form of drip pictures like Autumn Rhythm represented a transition to “automatic, freely associative painting”, whereby “his painting itself became a ritual process”. In his own words, he wanted to “express his feelings, not depict them” while “letting the painting live”.

Pollock painted the picture like other pictures by laying the canvas on the floor and then working it on all sides with the paint. He seldom used the classic painting tools such as a color palette and a brush, instead he used sticks, spatulas, knives and diluted and dripping, liquid paint, which he sometimes also let drip directly from the can onto the canvas. He moved continuously around the canvas and worked on every point without highlighting individual areas. As with many pictures put Pollock even in Autumn Rhythm only a complex pattern of black lines with diluted paint, which moved partially into the untreated canvas and made further samples. The pattern from the other colors was then applied.

He left the movements and the color scheme to a large extent to chance and he largely foregone conscious control by setting the hand, arm and also the whole body in motion. At the same time he emphasized that he could control the color and that nothing in the picture should be considered an accident.

Classification in the work of Pollock

Murales “Omnisciencia”, 1925, Mexico City

Autumn Rhythm is one of the abstract expressionist works of Pollock, which he created since 1947. Up to this point, Pollock worked in different styles; In his early phase, he was mainly influenced by his teacher Thomas Hart Benton and the Mexican wall painters José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros , who impressed him with their social commitment and expressionistic intensity. Later he turned to surrealism and models like Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró , filling his pictures like Going West with "riddles and magic formulas", "which he allegedly drew from his subconscious".

Pollock painted his first drip pictures in 1947, including the picture Lucifer as today's centerpiece of The Anderson Collection at Stanford University . With it he created a completely new kind of painting. Autumn Rhythm was created in October 1950, at a time when the painter was at the height of his work.

Provenance

Autumn Rhythm is owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Alfred Barr bought it in 1957, a year after the artist's death, from art dealer and collector Sidney Janis for $ 30,000. Janis, the sales agent of Jackson Pollock and his later widow Lee Krasner , exhibited the picture several times in previous years and wanted to sell it to the museum for 8,000 US dollars as early as 1955. Barr was unable to convince the purchasing commission to buy the then controversial image. For the purchase in 1957, Barr was able to use the George A. Hearn Fund to pay the price of 30,000 US dollars, which had risen after the artist's death after consultation with Krasner. The foundation, born from the legacy of collector George A. Hearn , was to be used to purchase paintings by contemporary and living American artists.

With Autumn Rhythm, the museum was able to expand its holdings of Abstract Expressionism paintings, which were mainly acquired in the 1950s through the purchase and especially the donation of several other paintings by Pollock as well as paintings by Hans Hofmann and Franz Kline , Mark Rothko , Willem de Kooning , Clyfford Still and Mark Tobey , William Baziotes , Sam Francis , Robert Motherwell and Barnett Newman .

literature

Milton Brown: Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), Fall Rhythm (1950). In: Edwin Mullins (Hrsg.): 100 masterpieces from the great museums of the world, Volume 1. Verlagsgesellschaft Schulfernsehen (vgs), Cologne 1984, ISBN 3-8025-2161-7 , pp. 69–72.

Web links

Autumn Rhythm in the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Autumn Rhythm at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Milton Brown: Jackson Pollock (1912–1956), Herbst Rhythmus (1950). In: Edwin Mullins (Hrsg.): 100 masterpieces from the great museums of the world, Volume 1. Verlagsgesellschaft Schulfernsehen (vgs), Cologne 1984, ISBN 3-8025-2161-7 , pp. 69–72.
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Autumn Rhythm in the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History in the Metropolitan Museum of Art .
↑ Autumn Rhythm in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
↑ Kenneth Baker: Anderson Gallery a major art donation to Stanford. Chronicle Art Critic, June 14, 2011.
↑ ^a ^b Gary Comenas: Abstract Expressionism on warholstars.org, 2009; Accessed May 10, 2014.
^ ^A ^b Christine Bianco: Selling American Art: Celebrity and Success in the Postwar New York Art Market. Master's thesis at the University of Florida , 2000; P. 14.
^ Greg Allen: Collecting Jackson Pollock. on the blog greg.org: the making of , September 4, 2007; Accessed May 10, 2014.

[Brown_1984-1] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Milton Brown: Jackson Pollock (1912–1956), Herbst Rhythmus (1950). In: Edwin Mullins (Hrsg.): 100 masterpieces from the great museums of the world, Volume 1. Verlagsgesellschaft Schulfernsehen (vgs), Cologne 1984, ISBN 3-8025-2161-7 , pp. 69–72.

[MOMA-2] Autumn Rhythm in the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History in the Metropolitan Museum of Art .

[MOMA_II-3] Autumn Rhythm in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

[Stanford-4] Kenneth Baker: Anderson Gallery a major art donation to Stanford. Chronicle Art Critic, June 14, 2011.

[Comenas_2009-5] Gary Comenas: Abstract Expressionism on warholstars.org, 2009; Accessed May 10, 2014.

[Bianco_2000-6] A ^b Christine Bianco: Selling American Art: Celebrity and Success in the Postwar New York Art Market. Master's thesis at the University of Florida , 2000; P. 14.

[Allen_2007-7] Greg Allen: Collecting Jackson Pollock. on the blog greg.org: the making of , September 4, 2007; Accessed May 10, 2014.