Abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock's drip paintings may not be entirely abstract. According to new research from UC San Diego psychiatrist Stephen Stahl and colleagues, Pollock likely suffered from bipolar disorder. They tie this posthumous diagnosis to the likelihood that Pollock hid "polloglyphs," figurative images, in the chaos of his poured and splashed paintings.
"The question arises whether his SMI played any role in the way he created his drip paintings, especially when he was overactive and manic," the scientists sate. "Furthermore, did visual hallucinations or enhanced visual perception associated with mania or psychosis facilitate Pollock in embedding and camouflaging images under layers of thrown paint?"
From Artnet:
They claim, for example, that the 1945 work Troubled Queen can be rotated to reveal various images, including a "charging soldier holding a hatchet and a pistol with a bullet in the barrel; a Picasso-esque rooster; a monkey with goggles and wine; and one of the clearest images, the angel of mercy and her sword."
Meanwhile, an untitled 1949 work at the Fondation Beyeler in Switzerland apparently shows Pollock "with his signature baseball cap looking at something with a magnifying glass; a monkey with his arm around Pollock looking on; and also those notorious booze bottles."
"Some experts attribute this to pareidolia—perceiving specific images out of random or ambiguous visual patterns—a phenomenon known to be enhanced by fractal fuzzy edges such as seen in Rorschach ink blots as well as in Pollock drip paintings," the scientists write.
The researchers push back on the idea that these hidden images in Pollock's work are just pareidolia—our brain's tendency to see patterns where none exist. They point out that certain figures, like wine bottles, clowns, monkeys, and elephants, appear repeatedly across multiple paintings. They even trace those figures to sketches Pollock created as part of his psychoanalysis in the 1930s.
Previously:
• Jackson Pollock's name hidden in his painting Mural?
• Jackson Pollock has a cookbook and it's delicious
• Jackson Pollock-a-sketch
