For

Senior Years Students

Curriculum

VCE Art/Studio Arts

Aim

To reflect and respond to commentaries on art.

Individual Task

But is it 'art'? Some observers might say: "I could do that". Why do you think some observers have this response?

Consider that some might suggest that Untitled (Green Silver) c.1949 looks easy to produce; that it lacks 'skill' or 'craftsmanship'.

Think how you would respond to this criticism. Give reasons for your point of view. Consider how Time magazine's art critic Robert Hughes explained in 1973 what makes Pollock's painting art:

"... Lavender Mist, 1950, about sums it up. In it one sees the delicacy – at a scale that reproduction cannot suggest – with which Pollock used the patterns caused by the separation and marbling of one enamel wet in another, the tiny black striations in the dusty pink, to produce infinity of tones.

It is what his imitators could never do, and why there are no successful Pollock forgeries: they all end up looking like vomit, or onyx, or spaghetti, whereas Pollock – in his best work, at any rate – had an almost preternatural control over the total effect of those skeins and receding depths of paint. In them the light is always right. Nor are they absolutely spontaneous; he would often retouch the drip with a brush. So one is obliged to speak of Pollock in terms of perfected visual taste, analogous to natural pitch in music – a far cry indeed, from the familiar image of him as a violent expressionist."

Analyse this quote and the underlying meaning. Do you think Robert Hughes's commentary is positive or negative? Discuss.