Jackson Pollock was an influential painter and pioneer of the abstract expressionist movement. Jackson Pollocks signature drip paintings and action paintings forever changed the course of American Art. Pollock was an influential artist of his time due to the fact that his pieces where one of a kind. His action paintings and drop paintings where unique in contrast to other American Art during the 1940s and 1950s. Pollocks technique was effortlessly performative as he would air paint and walk around canvasses on the floor. The action paining style embraced the spontaneity of applying paint to a canvas; whereas traditional painting styles embraced the careful application of paints to a canvas. This is what made Pollocks art vulnerable to criticism It was unapologetically different. The drip painting style was another abstract art form that Pollock heavily embraced. Instead of simply using a paint brush and a palette, he would drip and pour paint on a canvas and use many different instruments to substitute the traditional painting brush. Pollocks art was significant during the 1940s and 1950s because it redefined American Art. …show more content…
The artists of the abstract expressionist movement insisted that art should look like the inward expression of the artist and also emphasize emotional expression and freedom. Abstract expressionists place importance on the gestural application of paint. The abstract expressionist style is vulnerable to viewer interpretation as it is non representational art. This is essentially what made the abstract expressionist art distinct from the traditional art of the 1940s and 1950s. "Spontaneity, gestural brushstrokes, non objective imagery, and fields of intense color characterize Abstract Expropssonism. Many canvasses are quite large which, at any proximity, seem to envelop the viewer in the artist 's distinct pictorial world."