How to Describe Jackson Pollock’s Style of Painting

Few artists in history have made such a splash when breaking through to mainstream recognition as Jackson Pollock, whose explosive, paint-splattered creations shocked, wowed and confused viewers and art critics in equal measure. But what exactly was his style of painting, and how exactly should we describe this?

As an artist who has developed their own Jackson Pollock-inspired style of painting, it can be a little challenging at times to accurately capture what this style is in words. In this post I discuss some of the key terms and descriptions that best represent Jackson Pollock’s signature style of painting.

‘Drip painting’ and ‘poured painting’ are two terms synonymous with Jackson Pollock’s style, with these often both grouped under the umbrella term of ‘action painting’. There is much debate around the artistic accuracy of these terms; Pollock himself is said to have disliked the ‘action’ moniker.

Let’s investigate these words a little further.

Accurately describing Jackson Pollock’s style

‘Drip painting’ and ‘poured painting’ are two phrases synonymous with Jackson Pollock’s style. There has been much debate, however, among art critics – since before Pollock even achieved mainstream recognition – about whether these terms are artistically valid in accurately describing Pollock’s technique of applying his paint to its surface.

Both terms are often grouped under the umbrella term of ‘action’ painting, broadly emphasising that Pollock stood out for his physical process and bodily movement when painting. Pollock himself, though, was said to dislike this term, feeling this it did his paintings and himself a disservice.

The origins of ‘drip’ and ‘poured’ painting

Nice drip

The terminology of ‘dripping’ paint was thought to be around well before Pollock created his first painting in his signature style in 1947. After all, he wasn’t the first to use this technique of transferring paint to a canvas without making physical contact with the surface. (It is thought Pollock may have first got his idea from Mexican surrealist David Alfaro Siqueiros, who as early as 1936 dripped paint as part of the underpaintings for his murals, to help guide his design. Read my article on this topic here.) Exactly when Pollock’s paintings were first labelled as “drip” is unclear; the phrase seemed to have been the natural choice for writers as he emerged in art journals and exhibition reviews.

Who invented “poured painting”?

The term “poured paintings” was coined by art critic and scholar William Rubin. The phrase came about in reaction to what many in the art world saw as the inaccuracy of the word ‘drip’. Rubin and others felt strongly that ‘drip’ evoked the idea of individual droplets being released separately, spaced apart from one another; whereas ‘pour’ implied the application of a continuous line of paint, much more reflective of Pollock’s style.

There is an obvious flaw in this argument, though; Pollock’s paintings were not only produced with continuous, ‘poured’, flowing lines. His motions also included throwing, flinging and splattering his paint (among many others), and although the dominant feature in his paintings are continuous lines, there are instances of separately-spaced droplets too.

“Dripping” was actually Jackson Pollock’s choice of phrase – which could be argued to be the end of the debate – but I’m sure even he could see why others would prefer other descriptions.

Alternate meanings

I would also argue that “poured painting” is a misleading term in the modern art sense, as this phrase nowadays refers to acrylic pour paintings made by using acrylic pouring fluid as a medium. These are produced by deposited all the paint at once in the centre of a canvas, before physically holding and tilting the surface to create a flowing, marble-like effect (I’ve done one of these myself, Mercury in 2019, and this technique is nothing like that used by Jackson Pollock).

To end this section on one final pedantic note – I also find it somewhat peculiar how the two most common phrases about Pollock’s works, “drip paintings” and “poured paintings” belong to different tenses; the present tense of “drip” seems to evoke images of the artist mid-flow with the paint still dripping wet, whereas “poured” gives an image of a finished, dry canvas. You are less likely to find the phrases “dripped painting”, or “pour paintings” in the present tense, associated with his works. Perhaps it would be more accurate for even the tense to be varied between past and present when discussing his work; further reinforcing the fluid nature of Pollock’s style.

Action man

Both the terms “drip” and “poured” often find themselves grouped under the umbrella term of “action painting”. I personally like this phrase – ‘action’ encompasses all possible physical motions, is easy to understand and has a certain punch to it (I use the term ‘action painting’ frequently across my own art brand, By Kerwin).

Pollock himself, though, is said to have not been a fan of the term ‘action painting’ because of its over-emphasis on the physical process of applying the paint to the surface. He supposedly felt this term too simplistic, ignoring the other dimensions and characteristics of his paintings. He may also have felt ‘action painting’ did a disservice to controlled effort he put into their creation; the emotion and energy he was literally pouring into his works. While Pollock was not fond of discussing any deep meaning behind his paintings publicly and rarely ever gave insight into his inspiration behind a particular piece, there is little doubt that they each contain a story and personality.

In seeking to move away from the ‘action painting’ moniker, Jackson Pollock even tried to take the focus away from his method of painting altogether, stating that “technique is just a means of arriving at a statement”, and that “it doesn’t matter how the paint is put on, as long as something is said”.

Pollock’s downplaying of his spectacularly effective and unique technique is typical of an artist who always seemed to carry an air of disdain towards authority art figures and constantly sought to rebel against and break down artistic conventions. To tie his identity and reputation as an artist solely with this one particular style of painting – which represented just one chapter of many in his artistic journey – would be to go against much of what made him great in the first place. (His style of ‘action’ painting itself changed and evolved over time, and he even effectively abandoned this style of painting altogether before the end of his life.)

Other popular descriptions of Jackson Pollock’s painting style

In addition to the primary label of “drip” or “poured” when describing Pollock’s style, there are a whole host of other terms associated with his paintings and their attributes. Some of these include:

• Gestural
• Spontaneous
• Textured
• Layered
• Primal
• Fractal
• Raw
• Bold
• Dynamic
• Energetic
• Movement
• Unplanned
• Intense
• Fiery
• Chaotic
• Complex
• Non-representational
• Non-objective
• …which other descriptions would you add to the list?

Separate to the descriptions of Pollock’s style is the genre and ‘movement’ his drip (or poured) paintings fell under. These works belong firmly in the category of abstract expressionism; an art movement started in New York City (where Pollock built his career) after the Second World War in the 1940s that put the city on the art world map. (Perhaps more on the abstract expressionism movement and genre in another post..)

They think it’s all-over…

A final important concept to know about Jackson Pollock’s style is his ‘all-over’ composition used in many (but not all) of his action paintings. All-over refers literally to the way in which the paint evenly covers the entire painting surface, leaving no empty gaps within the painting.

This was a revolutionary feature of Pollock’s paintings as it had the effect of flattening the end result and allowing no depth to appear within the composition. Art throughout history up until around the early-1900s had predominately been used to depict objects and scenes from the physical world in realistic form. So not only was Pollock defying centuries (or possibly millennia) worth of conventions by jumping on the abstract painting movement pioneered in the early twentieth century, he was taking this one step further by depicting absolutely nothing at all within his paintings and with no composition to his artwork; no form, objects or shapes.

Pollock did produce drip paintings which weren’t all-over compositions (in other words he limited his drip technique to certain parts of the canvas), but the only way for depth to appear in his all-over paintings was for the viewer to lose themselves within the different layers. This was a truly revolutionary concept in the art world, and is just one of the reasons why Pollock’s style received such a diverse range of responses and a wide array of descriptions – with people still debating just how best to label and describe these in the present day.

Summing up

All of the terms and descriptions discussed above are valid to some degree, and it is commonplace for these to be used interchangeably. Not one particular term or word can encapsulate Jackson Pollock’s entire style and physical movement, as his very motion and method of transferring his paint to canvas would alter frequently within each individual painting.

It seems fitting to me that in any discussion of Pollock’s technique, these different words  and phrases are interwoven and layered together, just like his paintings were. With each of his painted layers often produced with a different physical motion and taking on different characteristics to the last, they are therefore reflective of the different terminology that is associated with Pollock’s work.

How would you best describe Jackson Pollock’s unique painting style?

My own range of acrylic handpainted, Jackson Pollock-inspired pop art portraits paintings can be viewed at www.bykerwin.com. All of my paintings are available as luxury canvas prints, with fast worldwide delivery.