Fluid dynamics and Pollock’s paint applicators

My compliments to authors Andrzej Herczyński, Claude Cernuschi, and L. Mahadevan on their quantitative analysis of Jackson Pollock’s painting technique. The article offers welcome insights into his creative process and artistic achievements. I was especially pleased that the authors explained why the term “drip painting,” commonly used to characterize his preferred method of deploying viscous material, is both incorrect and misleading.

I was somewhat puzzled, however, by the authors’ choice of the word “trowel” to describe Pollock’s favorite paint applicator and by their use of it interchangeably with “rod” and “stick.” He did mention using a trowel, but he generally applied fluid paint with hardened brushes—he said he used them “more as sticks rather than brushes.” Surely a trowel (from the Latin trulla, meaning “ladle”) would hold much more paint than a rod or stick. The authors failed to note that Pollock also painted with flexible, soft-bristle brushes, from which the material flowed very differently than it would from a stiff stick or hardened brush. Even more curious, they never mentioned his well-known use of basting syringes, which dispense a lot more paint than do either sticks or brushes and therefore give a much longer line; they also produce squirts that have their own kind of trajectories and velocities.

Examples of Pollock’s paint applicators are preserved and displayed at the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center (http://www.pkhouse.org ) in East Hampton, New York. The artist’s former home and studio, it now belongs to Stony Brook University. The collection also includes many still photographs and three motion pictures that show Pollock using the tools and materials in question. I think the authors would have benefited from examining those resources at the museum, where the paint-covered floor of Pollock’s studio vividly testifies to the variety and dynamic character of his technical innovations.