Art: Chaos, Damn It!

Jackson Pollock's abstractions (TIME, Dec. i, 1947 et seq.) stump experts as well as laymen. Laymen wonder what to look for in the labyrinths which Pollock achieves by dripping paint onto canvases laid flat on the floor; experts wonder what on earth to say about the artist. One advance-guard U.S. critic has gone so far as to call him the "most powerful painter in America." Another, more cautious, reported that Pollock "has carried the irrational quality of picture-making to one extremity" (meaning, presumably, his foot). The Museum of Modern Art's earnest Alfred Barf, who picked Pollock, among others, to represent the...

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