How is any of Jackson Pollock's work engaged in American ideas and values?

Question

Does anyone know a specific body of artwork by Jackson Pollock which has engaged in American ideas and values?

If so, how?

Also, does any of his work relate to any American philosophies?
Thanks a lot!

Answer 1

Jackson Pollock is a phenomenon of the 20th century art world. In that century, we moved away from the standing "rules" of what made good art, and played a game of "follow what is popular". The person who "decided" what was good art was Peggy Guggenheim, a New York socialite. She discovered Pollock and many other starving artists and made them the best thing since sliced bread. They had their merits, to be sure, but in a few short decades, we became a nation where artistic taste was dictated. Unlike other creative fields - such as music or cinema - where each of us exercise our individual taste, when it comes to art we are afraid to buy an unknown original. Someone might ridicule our choice. We are more secure with a poster of a "famous" artist than an original by a nobody. That is the largest connection that Jackson Pollock has to American ideas and values - that we will buy and hang up a poster of something we don't fully appreciate just because we don't trust our own taste, and want to project a cool image.

Answer 2

Pollock was an American artist that made American art. All of his work embodies American ideas and values.

:} He was a canvas cowboy. ...Tough, cool and hard with just the right touch of bitterness and an exquisitely tortured soul. He rode the gallery range, drank whiskey like a real man, painted passionately but with devil-may-care abandon and spent a lot of time on the lone prairie of his psyche.

Yup.... I hear that train a-comin' and ahm aall shook up.

Answer 3

Just one: FREEDOM!!!