Number 8

I've always admired Jackson Pollock's work, perhaps because so many people I've come across feel that his art is simple and I'm usually on the side of the underdog, the unappreciated. These people have stated that they feel that his artwork lacks creativity, thought, or passion. It is thoughtless and easy to say, "Pollock's stuff looks like my ten year old drew it" because the age of the painter holds little significance. The significance is in the reaction. I personally have always held the belief that art, great art, draws emotion from its viewer and regardless of whether that emotion is love, hate, melancholy, joy, or total despair, the fact that it speaks to the viewer on a purely emotional, visceral level speaks volumes for the piece at hand.

Pollock's Number 8 makes my eyes burn with salty tears, but I've no idea why. I love the movement in this piece, the mixture of colours, and that it seems to me to be cheerful and terribly sad all at the same time. Sixty two years after its creation it can still evoke powerful emotions from a strange and silly female in the middle of nowhere South Jersey. How can you not appreciate a painting that can achieve something so grand as that?