
Jacksonpollock.org (2003) - edent
https://jacksonpollock.org/
======
dang
All: a lot of comments in this thread are sneering at something: some person,
some group, someone's work, someone's comments, or the rest of the community.
Please don't do that on HN, even in response to sneers by others. It feels
justified and maybe brings relief, but it fills the thread with nasty fumes
and makes for a place no one can really enjoy. It's not in any of our
interests.

Curiosity, which we're trying for here, doesn't sneer. It is open, more
genuinely satisfying, and makes for a place that's better for everyone. That's
in all of our interests.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
fermienrico
I don't think its that bad @dang :) There is no nationalism and politics, just
people debating about art with passion. I kind of found it interesting and fun
to see both sides debating.

"Conservatives" \- anti-Pollock clan argue that art must have inherit beauty
and skill to produce.

"Liberals" \- pro-Pollock folks argue that the whole definition of art is up
for grabs.

:)

------
erulabs
Pollock is wonderful, particularly in person. But more than I enjoy the art
(Silver Over Black, White, Yellow, and Red in person is enough to bring me to
tears), I really enjoy listening to people's anger ranting why its not really
art, or why anyone could do that, etc. If art is intended to garner a reaction
- Pollock accomplishes that in spades.

I personally find it wonderful and beautiful - the sf-tech crowds mocking the
abstract and psychedelic tend to be a bit unaware where the world they both
live and work in came from!

~~~
regulation_d
My opinion of Pollock changed drastically when I saw something in person. For
me, it was Greyed Rainbow, which is completely uninteresting in a book and
quite enthralling in person.

I don't think this phenomenon is limited to abstract expressionism though.
Even being from Iowa, I didn't understand what was special about American
Gothic until I saw it in person.

~~~
sjcoles
I had a similar reaction to Mark Rothko's work. On a page it seems silly and
stupid but standing in front of a giant canvas that is seemingly perfectly
imperfectly painted is just something else. It engulfs your entire vision and
is really something that needs to be experienced in person.

~~~
jackthetab
I have experienced them in person.

Still don't get it.

Looking for an source that can explain it to me.

~~~
bane
I remember going to the National Gallery in D.C. and while asking for a map
the person at the desk told me "you should go to the tower, we have something
_very_ special there". It was an exhibit of some Rothkos and a video about his
life and significance to help the viewer interpret his works.

I found the paintings terrible, but knowing I usually understand them more
once I understand the artist I went to go watch the video. During the video
there was a couple rude guys who started snickering at the video. Usually I
get kind of upset about this sort of thing, but to be honest, I actually
agreed with them. I came away from the experience feeling like I had just been
part of a huge prank.

I learned that day that Rothko's painting are trash.

A couple years later I was in a small museum in another country, and across
the room saw a painting of a couple of poorly rendered squares in flat shades
and thought, "I bet that's a Rothko." Sure enough it was, and now I can
recognize his paintings from 20 meters away. So I guess his work is
recognizable and unique and I've learned some _very_ begrudging respect for
his work that way I guess -- they're at least recognizable trash.

~~~
goto11
> I learned that day that Rothko's painting are trash.

May I ask how you came to the conclusion the painting are _trash_ \- and not
just that you personally didn't like the paintings?

------
alextheparrot
No one accuses me of being insane for going to a park bench and watching
cranes and ducks skim across the river and just think. Why is it controversial
for someone to like Pollock’s paintings which give the same type of space?

Maybe they don’t have intrinsic meaning, but a lot of the world doesn’t. Maybe
they have meaning from their context, maybe the world does as well. At the end
of the day, to me they are provocative and inspirational and help me think and
I value thinking so I value Pollock’s paintings. Especially insofar as the
paintings aren’t encumbered by the heavy realist Americana that Pollock reacts
against from his studies with Thomas Benton (Though I do like Benton’s
paintings as well).

~~~
BelleOfTheBall
A lot of the post-war abstractionists are treated that way by people. From de
Kooning to Reinhardt to Yayoi Kusama, they all get dismissed for one thing or
another but I think all of them have some unique stylistic choices that
breathe life into their art, Kusama in particular. They aren't traditional or
easy to love, in fact, they are much easier to just scoff at. But the artists
put serious thought into each work and came in with an idea and a vision and,
a lot of the time, they realized those in truly unique ways. Just because
they're not "pretty" or "technically impressive" doesn't mean they're bad or
aren't art.

~~~
pmoriarty
_" doesn't mean they're bad or aren't art"_

At this point is there even anything at all that can't be considered to be
art?

The word has become almost meaningless.

~~~
ska
That's an idea that has probably been around as long as humans have been
making art (i.e. as long as humans).

~~~
Tainnor
"Certain disciples of the new school, much occupying themselves with the
measured dividing of the tempora, display their prolation in notes that are
new to us, preferring to devise new methods of their own rather than to
continue singing in the old way. Therefore the music of the Divine Office is
disturbed with notes of these small values. Moreover, they hinder the melody
with hockets, they deprave them with descants, and sometimes they pad them out
with upper parts made out of secular songs. The result is that they often seem
to be losing sight of the fundamental sources of our melodies in the
Antiphoner and Gradual, and forget what it is that they are burying under
their superstructures. They may become entirely ignorant of the ecclesiastical
modes, which they have already ceased to distinguish and the limits of which
they abuse in the prolixity of their notes. The modest rise and temperate
descents of plainsong, by which the modes themselves are recognized, are
entirely obscured. The voices move incessantly to and fro, intoxicating rather
than soothing the ear, while the singers themselves try to convey the emotion
of the music by their gestures. The consequence of all this is that devotion,
the true aim of all worship, is neglected, and wantonness, which ought to be
eschewed, increases."

\- Pope John XXII, _docta sanctorum patrum_ , ca. 1324

------
tW4r
I opened the website on my phone and was waiting for it to load for a good
couple of minutes as it was a white blank page.

Then I thought that maybe I need to scroll down, as soon as I touched the
screen I realized it.

What a nice way to discover functionality accidentally.

~~~
divbzero
It’s a sad commentary on the state of the web that (a) we’d consider waiting a
good couple of minutes for a website to load, and (b) scrolling down to
sidestep rendering issues is a reasonable tactic.

------
pmoriarty
I just saw an interesting video on _" How Jackson Pollock became so
overrated."_[1] Summary: It was due to the enormous influence of a single
critic who was a Pollock fan.

As an artist, I find it incredibly sad that critics and other gatekeepers
(such as museum curators and gallery owners) have any influence at all.

Fortunately, these days the need for such gatekeepers is diminishing, as
artists can get their art (at least in digital form) directly in front of
their audience, though at the same time new gatekeepers like search engines
and platform owners are arising.

[1] -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOGDDh1thaQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOGDDh1thaQ)

~~~
lemmsjid
I think there's a certain amount of risk each artist needs to take, in any
medium, where on one side you see the intentionally accessible art of the
television show, and on the other side you see art that challenges the
audience in some way: be it obscure, or inherently referential, or
historically situated. I love challenging art, but without an art history
degree I often can't appreciate it fully without also immersing myself in some
critical writing on it.

Challenging art almost need to be paired with critics who can provide useful
metaphors, historical contexts, or what-have-you to help appreciate the art.
Part of my appreciation of challenging works of art comes from reading
interesting critical appraisals of them. In those situations I think of the
critics and the artists as being somewhat intertwined.

I quite agree on the gatekeeper side of things, e.g. critiques who are mainly
concerned with questions of taste and judgement, where art that challenges
certain norms is judged poorly.

~~~
pmoriarty
There is a role for art education, and for providing context in which art can
be understood. However, the hierarchical ranking of artists by critics in to
"great" and "minor" is often just a matter of taste and opinion, and that's
what I object to.

I can't count the number of times I've gone in to famous museums and galleries
and found them stocked to the gills with art that I considered absolute and
utter garbage.

Now, of course the curators, critics, and gallery owners who extol such art
have a different opinion of this art than I do, or they wouldn't have put it
in to their museums and galleries, but really who's to say their opinion is
any better than anyone else's?

------
hsikka
What a wonderful surprise! I remember playing with this back in 3rd and 4th
grade during our computer lab, it was an absolute pleasure. I haven't seen it
in over 15 years, and am just floored by how timeless this is. It just so
happened that I walked by my old elementary school on Monday of this week.
What a strange coincidence.

Truly a joyful memory.

------
keiferski
For those who question Pollock’s artistry - see his paintings in person first.
They have a mesmerizing quality that grabs you from across the room. Looking
at them, it’s easy to get lost in a sort of meditative trance, which also
happens with Rothko (another ‘my kid could do that’ artist.)

~~~
gfxgirl
How much of that is because of skill as an artist vs just venue and size. In
other words what other things would be just as interesting if presented
similarly.

~~~
keiferski
This is easy to test: there are hundreds of other artworks in the museum. Very
few have the same pull as a Pollock, IMO.

------
Cactus2018
Numbers set grey scale.

Letters set colors (b=blue, r=red, y=yellow, etc).

Mouse click sets random color.

Spacebar or double-click resets canvas.

------
Thorentis
If a computer can generate something of equal quality without human input, I
don't consider it art. Sure, CGI looks realistic. But realistic imagery is not
enough for something to be art, and neither is random splashes of color. There
is nothing here that points to beauty, higher values, truth, or anything. If
it helps you zone out, sure, but again, not art. White noises helps some
people zone out. This is basically white noise with extra steps.

And Im referring to Pollock's work. This website is arguably more artistic
than his painting.

------
rectang
Pollack's works have an extreme textural effect when seen in person that can't
be conveyed with flat media like computer screens or printed reproductions —
they are three dimensional, because the paint blobs are _thick_ , and sharp.

This interactive site is a beautiful and intense way to experience Pollack. If
you get the chance, I hope you also get to experience Pollack's works live and
in the flesh.

------
mumblerino
The Canvas API didn’t exist in 2003 so I’m not sure what that 2003 in the
title is for. Did this site exist in Flash before 2006?

~~~
redmagic
This is a piece by Miltos Manetas. It was created in Flash initially. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miltos_Manetas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miltos_Manetas).

If you like this kind of work another well known artist in this space is
Rafael Rozendaal

[https://web.archive.org/web/20110529173830/http://www.supern...](https://web.archive.org/web/20110529173830/http://www.superneen.com/)

~~~
wombatmobile
When you click M he signs it

------
jacobwilliamroy
Using this site just leaves me feeling bored and kind of annoyed, just like a
pollack painting! I was just moving the mouse around thinking "Man, this is
going to take all day. I don't have time for this. I'm mortal." It's so weird,
because I haven't felt that way for a long time. I've been making good life
choices so far, up until I clicked on that website, and I just had to go away
and do something else.

~~~
thisisauserid
This site reminded you of your mortality and caused you to contemplate your
life choices? Heavy, man.

~~~
jacobwilliamroy
I get the same reaction from the DMV, but no one puts them in a museum.

------
claytongulick
I did this years ago to score some internet points. Sort of a similar concept:

[http://ratiosoftware.com/html5/autopollock/autopollock.html](http://ratiosoftware.com/html5/autopollock/autopollock.html)

------
vajrabum
Love the website. I'm not sure how I missed that when it came out. this site
shows some of the evolution of Jackson Pollock's work. In it you can see him
moving from imitation of the masters of earlier 20th century art to his own
unmistakable thing. Clark Terry, a revered jazz trumpet player and teacher
famously said "Imitate. Assimilate. Innovate." That same process can be seen
here. [http://www.all-art.org/art_20th_century/pollock1.html](http://www.all-
art.org/art_20th_century/pollock1.html)

~~~
vajrabum
Here's another website which shows a work that he made after he stopped making
the drip paintings he was famous for.
[http://www.writingfordesigners.com/?p=17930](http://www.writingfordesigners.com/?p=17930)

------
wombatmobile
“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

― Anaïs Nin

------
harshitaneja
I am a huge fan of The Art Assignment on youtube. I came in as a skeptic of
modern art but grew to appreciate it and with it my notions of what I consider
art or work in general. Jackson Pollock video essay[0] is worth watching as
well. [0] [https://youtu.be/1U19VOF4qfs](https://youtu.be/1U19VOF4qfs)

------
motohagiography
Great sample data set for seeding a brute force search space to crack "move
mouse for entropy" PRNG seeds?

------
Minor49er
A lot of people also don't realize that Pollock's wife was essentially the
curator of his work. He would complete a painting and have her approve it.
There have been tons of pieces that we haven't been able to see simply because
they didn't pass this test.

------
num
Did anyone else appreciate the ANSI art embedded in the HTML document at the
end of the body?

------
Cockbrand
There used to be a 99¢ app on the iOS app store which did pretty much the same
as this site. I loved it a lot, but unfortunately, it was gone from the app
store some day.

------
tomcam
Surprisingly fun. Double-click or press space to clear the image.

Also, the character graphics in the comments alone are amazing.

------
phaus
Its disappointing to me how this community responds to Jackson Pollack. Most
of the Pollack supporter's comments seem to assume that if a person doesn't
think he's a genius of incredible technical ability, then that means that
person is automatically an ignorant person that's making wild, uninformed,
random guesses about how art is created.

I think Pollack's paintings are aesthetically pleasing. I'm not a professional
artist, however I am an art and art history hobbyist. I have been for decades.
I like his paintings. I don't, however, think they are special or that he was
an artistic genius whose paintings should have broken the record at one point
for the most expensive work of art ever sold. That's OK though, we all have
different tastes and a guy with $100 million just happened to have different
tastes from this guy with no millions.

However, my opinion isn't random or uninformed. I know how a painting is
created. How the surfaces are prepared. How preparatory drawings and smaller
studies are done. How the final drawing is made. How the underpainting is
done. My art is pretty bad compared to professionals. However, studying it for
decades means I've watched actual masters do their thing for a countless
number of hours. I know how the Italian masters created their works of art in
great detail. I know how Pollack created his. The level of technical skill
required to become a master of classical realism is absurd. Pollack's strength
was executing and publishing an idea no one had done before. In the grand
scheme of all of art, I don't think that's a particularly strong strength when
compared to masters of classical realism.

My opinion is based on an intimate knowledge of what it takes to be that good.
If you disagree with my conclusion that's fine and reasonable but to pretend
that everyone doesn't consider him a highly skilled genius is ignorant is in
itself pretty ignorant.

If I wanted to create a work like Pollack's, there would likely be a learning
curve, but we aren't talking the same amount of practice and preparation that
classically trained artists require to even be semi-competent. Like I said
before, the biggest strength of the work he is known for was originality, not
technical competence. He might have also been technically competent as an
artist, but when I look at the works that made him famous I don't see it.

I'd be willing to hang all kinds of abstract / modern / postmodern art on my
wall because it adds color, sometimes has great composition, and is
aesthetically pleasing. However, most of it just isn't meaningful to me in the
same way that other genres of art are like classical realism and
impressionism. I don't think anyone should feel like that's a personal attack
on their preferences. I'm not missing something, it just has a different
effect on me. If you don't like classical realism you aren't missing something
either, you just like different things.

~~~
elahieh
Thanks for sharing that, it's good to read it in textual form. What do you
make of Twombly? I've been trying to understand what there is to see in his
work; I am a scientist rather than an artist and I appreciate that I may not
understand some skills.

However, I am still in favour of an "emperor's new clothes" type
interpretation of his work - his initial work was panned by critics; but when
the later critics write about his work, they reference his history as a
"cryptologist" in the Army, and they say things like "you can see AMOR here
and ROMA here in the scrawls" (in the book "Your Kid Could Not Do This" or
some similar title) as if there's something _deep_ there. ("others can't see
it, but he was a cryptologist once, so there must be something I'm missing")

So my take is similar to one up above here - Pollock became huge when he got a
great review from a highly influential critic. Same with Twombly.

I was reading the Smithsonian's transcript of Jim Sanborn's Oral History and I
see that theme a few times in there -- like his dad was an artist, and at a
young age he went to an art opening where he, his parents and the artist knew
the art was terrible but his parents were praising the work as profound,
confusing him; and later when he recognized the importance of being in the
good books of influential curators and gallery owners in DC; e.g. when Yuri
Schwebler became upset with him, he said it set his career back 10 years. So,
a "who you know" game. Praise everyone, stay in everyone's good books, and
hope you get noticed.

~~~
phaus
Some of Twombly's work is aesthetically pleasing and well composed, but some
of them could have easily been a page of doodles ripped out of any middle
schooler's notebook, like the $800,000 "Murder of Olefernes".

Overall I think he's far worse than Pollack and unless he had some kind of
mental illness that deluded him into thinking the work he produced took any
amount of effort whatsoever he was obviously a troll or a con man.

[https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2018/NYR/2018_NYR_15...](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2018/NYR/2018_NYR_15968_0019B_000\(cy_twombly_untitled\).jpg)

Then again maybe the picture above was indeed just some scribblings that he
never intended for anyone to see. I'm not overly familiar with his history.

------
validuser
Does it redraw the entire thing every frame? It seems to get slower the longer
you draw.

------
zlidka
I like it.

~~~
mobilemidget
I do too! And initially had to broom my brain, who is this pollock person
again?... then clicked the site, took 2ms to to revive brain cells :)

------
acomjean
I love the ui. You stop moving and its goes from line to blob...

------
meh206
That was my best 2 minutes of randomization all week

------
dymax78
This site is fantastic, thanks for sharing.

------
grahamburger
right-click -> view-image gives a .png of your created image to save. Nicely
done.

------
darth_avocado
Ahh my cat running over my mouse accidentally created a Jackson Pollock
masterpiece. Who knew modern art was so easy.

~~~
JKCalhoun
Seeing as it was 70 years ago, should we still call it "modern" art or is that
now an _era_ — like _mid-century modern_.

~~~
detaro
It is an era, but the era is called "modern art".

------
umvi
Neat. Art snobs always defend Pollock by claiming it's actually really
difficult to forge a true Pollock and that even though it looks easy, real
Pollock paintings have subtleties that are impossible to reproduce unless
you've practiced for a long time.

I say... who cares. If it's easy to imitate something and get 90+% of the way
with no skill or practice, then the art isn't worth admiring.

~~~
munificent
This is the quintessential HN comment. Completely dismiss an entire region of
the human experience and entire field of experts by assuming that your own
unfamiliarity means there must be nothing there worth learning.

An equivalent claim is, "Windows 95 can do 90% of what Linux can do already.
Operating system programmers aren't worth admiring."

If I've learned anything in my life, it's that when a group of people take
something very seriously that seems pointless to me, 99% of the time, it is my
own ignorance preventing me from seeing what they see.

~~~
routerl
What you've described is especially pernicious over multiple iterations.

Windows 95 can do 90% of what Linux can. Windows 3.1 can do 90% of what
Windows 95 can. DOS can do 90% of what Window 3.1 can.

In this (contrived and counter-chronological) example, at each iteration we
lost something that was only ever valuable to connoisseurs. In the case of
software, we're talking about developers and power users.

But yeah, let's all keep mocking Pollock, and the art history students who
cherish the work, until we end up with nothing but the most commercial,
easily-digestible, and trite art.

Oh wait...

~~~
virtue3
shhh, you'll wake up Andy Warhol from his grave lol.

