Just finished watching the Jackson Pollock Bio-Film with Ed Harris as the tortured artist...

[WCGreen]

Pollock has always pulled me in because of the perceived randomness of his work.

The first time I saw one his paintings was at the Cleveland Art Museum, which, by the way, is free to get in. They only charge for special shows.

I think I was in the tenth grade and I looked his painting hanging on the wall and to me it looked like one of the drop cloths my dad had over at his apartment place. Just a lot of random colors and weird shapes splayed across the canvass, just like my dad's drop cloth.

And then I walked away and didn't think much about it until I went to Ohio State in 1977. One of the first classes I signed up for was Art Appreciations, which my dad heckled me with until the day he died.

Something happened to me as I heard the jocks sniggering over in the place the jocks decided to gather and mock out anything that didn't have to do with making money or playing football. It was huge class, about 300 kids and two or three assistant profs and the main deal, a real live artist who copped the best deal of all; teaching art too Midwestern children who could care less about Pollock or any other artist for that matter.

The class was all about art after the war, which at that time was WW11.

I actually took more from that class into my adulthood than any other class I took before or after. It made me open my eyes to what beauty there was all around us and to appreciate the men and women who can pull down some strands of the nectar that defines who we are and make weave a melody, a painting, an essay or a novel or any other form of art to show us who we are.

I see in the splatter works of Pollock the struggle to overcome the temptation of trying to make sense of the world we live in and just look at the core and see the symmetry that defines us.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. I have always wanted to see that; no idea why I haven't.

Your review has renewed my determination to see this pivotal movie.

And Ed Harris is really a superb actor.

[olddots]

2. Pollocks suffered ridicule from fools

when you actually saw them they were so full of depth you could walk into them .they don't photograph well like a lot of art that has to be seen live .

I sure miss art -hopefully it will come back some day .

[Aristus]

3. I admit I'm one of those who doesn't 'get' Jackson Pollack.

I don't disparage his work; it just doesn't speak to me the way, say, Edward Hopper's does.

I'm keeping an open mind, though. Maybe someday, especially if I see a canvas in real life, I'll see what you describe. I'd like to. Art is so amazing. It can dazzle you with its intimation that human beings are capable of extraordinary things.

[WCGreen]

5. Edward Hopper is my second favorite American artist....

Check out the movie. It's a great movie and also shows what it was like to live in the Village after the War.

There is a scene, close to the end, where they slowly span across several of Pollock's best. I think you can see in that sequence what Pollock was getting at.

Plus there is the paint and how he was immersed in all that lead based paint. I have to think it was what drove him mad in the end.

[LeftofObama]

4. I've been fascinated with Jackson Pollock's art for years.

I don't know why, but it just seems to speak to me. When I talk to other people about it they look at me like I'm crazy, but I don't care. I love his art!