Lost in Translation: Jackson Pollock's Autumn Rhythm

One of the great assets of digital media tools is the ability to aggregate files for students so that they don't have to spend time chasing each painting or music piece down individually. The Art Humanities class at Columbia College (required for all undergraduate students) took advantage of this, having all the photos/paintings/sculptures we needed to learn available on the Art Hum webpage. The website had all the images and information about the images, and enabled you to prepare for the class before it began, and study for exams very quickly and effectively.

We spent an entire class period on Jackson Pollock, and in particular studied Autumn Rhythm:











We discussed Pollock's Abstract Expressionism, and looked at the PowerPoint projection of the image onto the blackboard. We all appreciated the lines, the colors, and the "rhythmic" shapes. It's a really beautiful painting.

And then you go to the Met and you see it.

The first thing that hits you is the size. It is 105 x 207 inches. That's 8.75 feet tall by 17.25 feet long. Taller than any human and longer than most NYC apartments. From far away or close the painting makes an enormous impression on you, and envelopes you in its size. Some of the lines we appreciated before are the width of your arm, and the paint splotches the size of your head. How big is it on the computer screen you are looking at right now? About 2x4 inches?

Of course the colors are brighter in person and the lines are more explosive. Each paint drop is unique. But what you can also only get in person is seeing just how physical the painting is: the varying thickness of the paint, the multiple of layers of work, the extreme physicality that he used when violently throwing or gently dropping the paint across the canvas. The "rhythm" part of the title takes on a whole new meaning.

Somehow a digital representation of the image just makes Pollock get lost in translation. This isn't true for all paintings, and it will be interesting to see if there is an effort to increase the ability to transpose between these two forms. If something can be represented almost or equally as well in the digital world, it will be easier to get your great work known to the world, studied, and potentially sold. But as Pollock shows, there are some instances where our old methods can't change. Paintings that get lost in translation will still need to have school field trips to go see them. But until they can make it to the Met, whether that means taking a plane or the 6 train, it's great that students are able to access the Met's galleries through their online Collection Database.