What A Load Of Pollocks

By Mark Steer

New research in to the work of the famous artist, Jackson Pollock, has concluded that his works show no greater mathematical complexity than the work of a child. These latest findings refute earlier claims that Pollock’s work showed a great deal of underlying complexity.

In 1999 Richard Taylor, a physicist from the University of New South Wales, Australia, published the first of a number of articles that studied the fractal nature of Pollock’s wall-sized pictures, which are characterised by seemingly random assortments of squiggles, blotches and drips.

Fractal objects are shapes which repeat themselves on different scales (what is a fractal?) and are regularly found in nature from the branching of trees to the forms of snowflakes.

Mathematically minded? Jackson Pollock at work.

It has been suggested that fractals are innately pleasing to the human eye, which is why, claims Taylor, Pollock’s painting are so popular. Analysis of his art suggested that, between 1943 and 1952, when the artist was most prolific, Pollock’s piece became steadily more fractal and therefore more pleasing.

Taylor then went further to claim that he could spot an original Pollock by using his fractal analysis alone; and in 2006 he got his chance. When a stash of abstract paintings was found in the house of one of Pollock’s closest friends, all the indications were that they were genuine Jackson. Not so according to the maths, however. Taylor’s analysis pooh-poohed the idea that the paintings were genuine – their fractal dimension just wasn’t high enough to be from the great artist himself.

So far, so good – we had an objective way to analyse paintings to decide whether they were genuine or not. It almost sounds too good to be true. And it is.

New research has pooh-poohed Taylor’s pooh-pooh by pointing out that whilst not only do some genuine Pollocks not meet the Australian’s fractal criteria for authenticity, but also that paintings drawn by art students and children do. The new research claims that trying to use maths to solve the problems of artist attributation is quite simply silly.

They point to ways of telling whether paintings are authentic or not. In the case of the possible Pollocks, the fact that some of the materials used in the paintings weren’t patented until well after the artist’s death in 1956 gives a good hint that they’re not quite kosher.

More articles on the Null:

- Interesting - What the hell are fractals?
- Important - Get to grips with genetic modification
- Not so important - How didgeridoos do what didgeridoos do
- Vital - What is nuclear fusion?

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Title mage: Jackson Pollock
Pollock: Hans Namuth

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