Another analysis of Pollock

I feel that Paul Jackson Pollock is a prime example of both Sigmund Freud’s and Foucalt’s main arguments.
Freud’s discussion on daydreams and art stated that an artist’s creation is a representation of his or her unconscious wishes. Pollock’s abstract expressionist work seems to me to be the best at supporting this theory. He has been quoted as saying “The method of painting is the natural growth out of a need. I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them.” Although Pollock, in his frequent state of intoxication, may have not been able to nail down exactly what he was experiencing, at least for me, his paintings possess some sort of strong emotional undercurrent. It could also be argued that his earlier work also satisfies this theory, since much of it depicts “realistic” scenes with a twist in the interpretation. The unconscious of Pollock may have accounted for the “twist” in these earlier works.
The famous artist also embodies (quite well, I might add) the take-away point from Foucalt’s theory, in which he used Velazquez as an example of pushing boundaries and choosing to buck widely accepted norms. The style of abstract expressionism, which Pollock is known for, breaks quite a few “rules” about art that the common folk who are not privileged members of the “art world” tend to hold dear. These include; art should represent something, perhaps a familiar object, it should be pleasing to the eye, and it should require talent. An abstract expressionistic Pollock, to the layman, appears to satisfy none of these. However, it is painting in this style that made Pollock famous and allowed one of his paintings to sell for the obscene amount of $140,000,000 just three years ago. I feel that Foucalt admires this, which is why he focused his discussion in the text on Las Meninas, which rejected both social and art norms of the time (aka offering different perspectives and focusing on the king and queen, as they were the most powerful people in the land). I do not know if this painting caused Velazquez any strife at the time, but I would assume that it would. Oh well. It got him some academic praise and perhaps some Pollock-esque fame and approval.