Paul Jackson Pollock's Influence On Modern Art

Paul Jackson Pollock was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement during 1940s, he rose to prominence due his unique style of painting where he would splatter paint, which led to his nickname “Jack the Dripper”. Jackson Pollock became famous because his art was completely different than others during the time period, people were obsessed over modern art, but pollock thought out of the box, and introduced a completely new form of art called drip painting, this sparked a revolution in the art field. Jackson Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming in 1912. He was the fifth and youngest son, his father LeRoy Pollock was a farmer and soon to be land surveyor for the government while his mother's purpose remains

The first person to have influenced Pollock was Frederick Schwankovsky; he “gave Pollock some rudimentary training in drawing and painting, introduced him to advanced currents of European modern art, and encouraged his interest in theosophical literature”(). Their relationship soon ended after Pollock was expelled from Riverside High School. The next person Pollock would come under influence was Thomas Hart Benton, “Pollock’s work was strongly influenced by the compositional methods and regionalist subject matter of his [companion] Benton”. There were many more artists that influenced Pollock, but these above specifically built the fundamentals for young Pollock. Pollock’s style also developed through his influence of achohol, ,apparently after his experiences in psychiatric treatment for alcoholism,his work transformed into semi abstract and “showed the assimilation of motifs from the modern Spanish artists Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró, as well as the Mexican muralist José Clemente Orozco. Jungian symbolism and the Surrealist exploration of the unconscious also influenced his works of this period”(). Pollock absorbed all the knowledge given and created masterpieces that changed American art forever, the masterpiece created was called Mural, which was a dark interpreatiton of Benton’s