Convergence

By Jackson Pollock

Analysis
By Lawrence Yahia Haj-Mahmoud
Convergence, by Jackson Pollock, is both a formalist and expressionist painting made in
the 20th century. When I firstly saw this painting, it came to my mind that I can create such a

painting by myself. In my opinion, the combination of white, yellow, orange and black express
dynamism, a colorful storm of inner frustrations. It can be a representation of the mind and soul
of the painter; his emotion pouring on his canvas. He painted his emotions, he painted the
untouchable. In this painting I can see both the good and the evil of the world in which the
painter lived. The good, represented by white, orange and yellow, which for me are a symbol of
light and hope, is in a continous battle with the evil, symbolised by the color black. Or,
considering that the painting was realised during a war, it can represent the battle between the
U.S.A and Russia.
Convergence was made in 1952, the period of the Cold War, a period of depression and
sadness. But Pollock rebelled against these feelings and used bright colors to show the bright
side of existence, using an energetic, gestural style that represents him as a person. Jackson
Pollock uses thick lines to creat a third dimension for his painting, besides using a huge canvas in
order to express his multitude of negative feelings but also to impress. This painting is
enormous and its size can only really be appreciated in person. In 1964, puzzle producing
company, Springbok Editions, released Convergence, the jigsaw puzzle. It was a 340-piece
puzzle that they promoted as the worlds most difficult puzzle. The impact of Pollocks
Convergence was evident in 1965 when hundreds of thousands of Americans purchased the
jigsaw puzzle.
In 1945, Pollock and his wife, Lee Krasner, herself an artist, moved to a farmhouse in
rural Long Island, and he converted the barn into a studio where he could lay large canvases on
the floor. In 1947 he adopted what would become his signature technique. Moving all around the
canvas, he dripped, poured, spattered and even flung commercial house paint onto it, layer after
layer, creating an allover pattern and an intricate web of color and texture. Although his method
seems random, Pollok insisted, There is no accident, emphasizing is control over the paint.
Still, the control was intuitive: The modern artist is workingand expressing an inner world- in
other words, expressing the energy, the motion, ant other inner furies. Pollocks technique was
dubbed in action painting, and it was one of the hallmarks of the artists known as Abstract
Expressionists. They worked in a variety of individual styles but shared a belief that art should
be a direct expression of the artists psyche and that the act of painting itself was meaningful.

To conclude, Convergence by Jackson Pollock is part of the Expressionism, because the

artist made it in order to express meaning or emotional experience rather than physical reality
, which is stated in the definiton ef Expressionism. It is also part of the Formalism, as
formalism emphasizes compositional elements such as color, line, shape and texture rather than
iconography or the historical and social context . I have enjoyed this painting and I see
Jackson Pollock as a brave painter who wasnt afraid to express his feelings and views regarding
the constraints of societies oppressions.

Sources
https://prezi.com/yp5glgdozmyr/jackson-pollock-convergence/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressionism, last modified on 16 October 2014, at 00:46
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formalism_(art), last modified on 20 March 2014, at 13:17

Arts in the History of mankind, Rao Publishing House