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Ensayo del lote
Jackson Pollock’s Composition with Sgraffito III dates from a key period in the mid-1940s when the artist’s work still contained the last vestiges of his interest in Surrealism, before his paintings dissolved into the fully abstract gestures for which he is so well-known today. Writing in the artist’s catalogue raisonné, the authors note that his works from the mid-1940s "demonstrate Pollock's developing and wide-ranging imagination, his ability to adapt the innovations of others to his own purposes, and his exuberant willingness to violate the conventions of traditional media for expressive effect in works of a smaller scale than his paintings" (F.V. O'Connor, Jackson Pollock: A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, Drawings and Other Works, Vol. 4, New Haven, 1978).
The present work is centered around a figure whose body is rendered in yellow oil paint and with a head constructed out of negative space left by the artist’s brush. It’s distinguishing feature is Pollock’s use of sgrafitto, an artistic technique in which an upper layer of material is scratched away to reveal a contrasting layer underneath. Here, Pollock uses a sharp implement, possibly the blunt end of his paintbrush, to reveal a mysterious totemic figure in the upper right corner, and also define the stylized arms and fingers of the central figure.
Like other New York artists at the time, especially Gorky, Motherwell, and Baziotes, Pollock was influenced by the ideas and practices of the European surrealists. "The importance of Pollock's discovery of automatic drawing cannot be overstressed. Automatic drawing released the images in his imagination to his hand, and enabled his hand to free him from dependence on those images," writes art historian Barbara Rose (Jackson Pollock: Drawing into Painting, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1980). Art’s ability to probe the depths of the mind has long given it a capacity to evoke the speed of thought—the sudden impulse or flash of inspiration. This connection is clearly evident in automatic drawing, a practice developed by the Surrealists as a means to visually express the unconscious with as little interference as possible. The pronounced influence of a type of unconscious automatism can be seen in the composition of the present work, particularly in the mysterious figure in the upper right.
The present work is centered around a figure whose body is rendered in yellow oil paint and with a head constructed out of negative space left by the artist’s brush. It’s distinguishing feature is Pollock’s use of sgrafitto, an artistic technique in which an upper layer of material is scratched away to reveal a contrasting layer underneath. Here, Pollock uses a sharp implement, possibly the blunt end of his paintbrush, to reveal a mysterious totemic figure in the upper right corner, and also define the stylized arms and fingers of the central figure.
Like other New York artists at the time, especially Gorky, Motherwell, and Baziotes, Pollock was influenced by the ideas and practices of the European surrealists. "The importance of Pollock's discovery of automatic drawing cannot be overstressed. Automatic drawing released the images in his imagination to his hand, and enabled his hand to free him from dependence on those images," writes art historian Barbara Rose (Jackson Pollock: Drawing into Painting, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1980). Art’s ability to probe the depths of the mind has long given it a capacity to evoke the speed of thought—the sudden impulse or flash of inspiration. This connection is clearly evident in automatic drawing, a practice developed by the Surrealists as a means to visually express the unconscious with as little interference as possible. The pronounced influence of a type of unconscious automatism can be seen in the composition of the present work, particularly in the mysterious figure in the upper right.