Pollock’s Bridge Between the Arts and Sciences

 2 December 2021

Pollock’s Bridge Between the Arts and Sciences

There is a chasmic divide between the arts and the sciences. This divide exists within academia, but also within popular culture. People generally tend to identify as either left or right-brained; logical or creative. This divide is not a necessary one. The poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once said, “science arose from poetry…when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends” (Goethe). The arts and sciences can have an incredible, mutually beneficial relationship. Erik Kandel, in his book Reductionism in Art and Brain Science, describes art and science as two separate cultures in desperate need to meet. A key to bridging this divide is abstract art because of its unique roots in technological advancements, its isolation of neural components of perception, and its focus on deconstructionism. The work of abstract-expressionist Jackson Pollock is a particularly notable piece of this bridge, not just for his breakthroughs in abstract work but for the invocation of science in his pieces. 

Abstract art uses the basic elements of shape, form, color, and line to create a composition that is independent of the visual references in the world (Visual Thinking Arnheim). It was born of the advent of photography. Paintings prior to photography conformed to our brain’s rules for extracting information.  It used the same elements of perspective, foreshortening, modeling, and chiaroscuro our brain uses when processing the three-dimensional natural world. Photography was able to reproduce the natural world far more accurately than any artist could. With the advent of photography, many artists felt a need to create a new kind of art. This art would encompass the fundamental changes in science and technology, and reduce the three-dimensional world into its simpler forms. This reductionist form was abstract art. Eric Kandel says, “In describing the world they see, abstract artists not only dismantle many of the building blocks of bottom-up visual processing by eliminating perspective and holistic depiction, but they also nullify some of the premises on which bottom-up processing is based” (Kandel, 179). Abstract painting elements are not visual representations, but references and clues to how we conceptualize objects. There is a reduction of the object to its core properties. There were many artists who paved the way for abstract art. While abstract art as a whole can help bridge the divide between the cultures of art and science, Jackson Pollock did notable work in doing this himself. 

Jackson Pollock had two important advancements in reductionist art. Whether intentional or not, these advancements also pave a path for the intersection of the arts and sciences. He also had a notably scientific method to his work. This method was key to developing his two major advancements. First, Pollock created action paintings which American essayist Clement Greenberg referred to as “crisis” paintings: “The easel painting, the movable picture hung on a wall, is a unique product of the west, with no real counterpart elsewhere… the easel picture subordinated decorative to dramatic effect. It cuts the illusion of a box-like cavity into the wall behind it and within this, as a unity, it organizes three-dimensional semblances” (Greenberg).  Essentially, Pollock’s “crisis” paintings, such as Convergence, can be perceived from multiple rotations of the work, whereas traditional paintings exist within a box with a defined top and bottom. Many of his “crisis” paintings were done in his signature drip technique which has intersections in the culture of science. 

A team of researchers from Brown University studied Pollock’s drip technique and its relation to fluid mechanics. They recreated Pollock’s techniques with the help of historical video recordings. The team determined that, whether Pollock was aware of it or not, Pollock’s technique shows the artist had a keen understanding of fluid mechanic properties. Pollock’s technique seems to intentionally avoid what is known as “coiling instability” or the tendency of a viscous fluid to form coils when poured (Zenit et. al, 2019). “Pollock selected the physical properties of the paint to prevent filament fragmentation before deposition and applied it while moving his hand sufficiently fast and at certain heights to avoid fluid filaments from coiling into themselves” (Zenit et. al, 2019). Pollock used intricate techniques to prevent excess dripping and used very specific hand motions to create his work. In order to do this, Pollock needed an understanding of the physical conditions necessary to create these patterns. Zenit claims that these findings could be key to authenticating Pollock’s works. Pollock’s pieces use these physics properties to create his signature style. In the same way, understanding the physics behind his pieces can help us better identify his work, and develop new techniques to create pieces inspired by it. 

Pollock’s second advancement was his abandonment of traditional composition. Pollock’s work lacks points of emphasis or particularly identifiable components. They encourage peripheral vision while lacking a central motif. “As a result, our eyes are constantly on the move: our gaze cannot settle or focus on the canvas” (Kandel, 104).  This allows for a much broader internal perception. Kandel describes how when painters like Pollock reduce their art to form, line, color, and light, they demand the viewers participate in creating what is perceived. Not only is this groundbreaking in art, but it is essential for a neurological understanding of perception. Neuroscience is able to use these elements to map places in the brain where processes of perception take place and associate these elements with the different responses produced. Abstract art provides a unique window into understanding perception. It plays heavily to the strategy of information processing and knowledge ordering called top-down processing. 

In top-down processing, we perceive the world around us by drawing from what we already know in order to interpret new information (Gregory, 1970). It allows us to understand when we see a painting of the object that what we’re seeing is a painting and not the object itself. Top-down processing brings the viewer into the reactive process so different people will have different perceptions of the same work. Art and the perception of art are incomplete without this. One of Kandal’s key points is that abstract art relies more heavily on top-down processing than figurative art does. Since Western paintings sought to create a more hyperrealistic depiction of the world, there was less of a need to interpret what the painting could be from what we know. By gaining a deeper understanding of the way we process art, we can inform and enhance the culture of art. Using art, we can also gain a deeper understanding of the way we process information. 

Pollock had a particularly strong inclination towards perception. He used perception in his paintings. This was not in the traditional, classical sense of linear perception. He used perception to abandon figuration. Pollock saw his drip paintings as a reductionist approach to art. He abandoned figuration in the hopes of removing the constraints on his unconscious and the creative process. Pollock was interested in the psychologist Sigmund Freud. Freud had pointed out years earlier that, “the language of the unconscious is governed by “primary processes” thinking, which differs from the secondary process of thinking of the conscious mind in having no sends of time or space and in readily accepting contradictions and irrationality” (Kandel, 107).  Pollock wanted to isolate the secondary process of thinking to allow himself to accept contradiction and irrationality. By reducing his conscious form to an unconsciously motivated drip technique, Pollock showed great inventiveness and originality. Pollock applied the psychology principles described by Freud to develop his most noteworthy technique. 

These intersections between Pollock’s work and Freud’s work allow for a conversation bridging the cultures of science and art. His understanding of psychology allowed him to create a different experience for the viewer. Pollock seemed to have intuitively grasped the concept of the brain as a pattern-recognizing device. He played on this through his work. His pieces had large elaborate designs which draw the mind in, searching for patterns to recognize. The lack of patterns to recognize makes the viewer want to observe the painting for longer and has the effect of drawing the viewer in. Pollock was also interested in the work of Carl Jung, though Jung’s influence is more evident in Pollock’s earlier years.  In Seldon Rodman’s Conversations with Artists, Pollock himself said “We’re all of us influenced by Freud, I guess. I’ve been a Jungian for a long time” (Rodman, 82). From Jung, Pollock found the ideas of a “journey into the unconscious” and the coming together of opposites which is evident in Pollock’s earlier works where light/dark and warm/cool colors interrupted each other. 

Pollock was deeply influenced by the psychological sciences, but his work was scientific in other ways. Pollock’s work and the culture of science seem to be rooted in the same philosophy of answering questions. Kandel says, “Pollock’s work speaks to a profound question: how do we impose order on randomness? This is a question that Kahneman and Tversky explored extensively in their collaborative work which led to a Nobel prize in economics” (Kandel, 107). They explored the question of why people have difficulty correcting and assessing whether data is random or reflects structure. Their conclusion was that “ people’s judgments are not guided by detailed knowledge of probability, but by a heuristic to judge data as random if is intuitively representative of a random sample” (Williams, Griffiths 2013). Kahneman and Tversky determined that since people unconsciously search for patterns, they have difficulty discerning randomness from the intentional. There was a methodology to the randomness created by Pollock. It was intentional. It was produced by his unconscious mind. The lack of true patterns draws people in by their natural search for patterns and inability to judge what they are perceiving as random or a pattern they just need to figure out.  

Pollock’s possible patterns are a unique feature that could only come from abstract art. His work in abstract art is just part of what makes reductionism key to bridging the divide between the cultures of art and science. Both science and art depend on reductionism. In art, there is a dependence on the reduced forms of objects to depict them. In science, reductionism is necessary simply to begin the questioning. The common use of reductionist strategies demonstrates how science can inform the way we experience art and seek to understand its meaning. This greater understanding of experience can allow art to progress. Pollock used the sciences to progress abstract art with new concepts and techniques. Kandel explains that modern art uses similar methodologies to those used by scientists. Both push the bounds of what can be understood and predicted with the existing models of reality. This is because abstract art is not limited to showing the world in a familiar way. Representational art is limited to this. 

Kandel describes art and science as two separate cultures with a desperate need for collision. The collision exists and is evident in all art, particularly abstract. In his book, Proust Was a Neuroscientist, Jonah Lehrer says that “science needs art to frame the mystery, but art needs science so that not everything is a mystery” (Lehrer, p. xii). Pollock exemplifies this idea by framing his art through the lens of science in order to hone his techniques and better control his viewer’s perception. Many writers argue a need for the proposal of a third culture; a culture that constitutes the recognition that science and the arts are dependent on one another. Kandel is not satisfied with this third culture. He proposes a “fourth culture” that is more of a blur between arts and sciences than a link (Kandel). Kandel’s “fourth culture” would be embodied by artists like Pollock and those who use science, intentionally or not, to advance their art and the movement of art they are working in. 

Art and science both seek to deconstruct what we see in an attempt to gain a better understanding of the world. Pollock demonstrates why it is important to jointly study the arts and sciences, but there are many more reasons Kandel outlines. The joint study of art and neuroscience is important because their forms of reductionism are linked in a fascinating way. The final parts of Kandel’s book argue that there is a mutual benefit to interlacing art and science, particularly neuroscience. Reducing art to its core elements can add to our understanding of how the brain works, just as reducing neuroscience to its core elements can add to the understanding of how art can be perceived and used to evoke intentional responses. Kandel hopes reductionism will serve art and neuroscience because it shows “how we process unconscious and conscious perception, emotion, and empathy” (p. 188). Reductionism in brain science will serve art because it will “enhance traditional introspection with the knowledge of how some aspects of our mind work” (p. 189).

Science and art have always had a mutually beneficial relationship, despite the societal effort to drive them apart. Since the beginning of modern experimental science in the fifteenth century, art and science have been more interlinked than ever. Da Vinci’s use of human anatomy led to him depicting the human form in a more compelling and accurate manner. Similarly, his art gave him a platform to practice science express his inventiveness, and create inventions that went far beyond the science of his day. Understanding perception can allow artists to create art that better evokes our senses and mind. Similarly, art can help further our understanding of the brain, and inspire advancements and inventiveness. Reductionism is the root of why abstract art is key to mending the divide between the cultures of art and science. Pollock demonstrated the significance of using science to propel one’s art. His use of science not only led him to be an intuitive and inventive artist but allowed him to shape the world of abstract art.

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