Читать книгу Pollock - Donald Wigal - Страница 17

The distinction between the authentic and the fabricated Pollock began even in the artist’s lifetime. Pollock himself kept the myth alive that he was an unsophisticated cowboy.

The country was eager to hear about cowboy legends. The popularity of the image was seen in pop culture through many movies and novels containing Western themes, as well as ‘country and western’ songs which were accepted into the mainstream parade of hits. It is likely most Americans can trace their images of the Old West back to movies, especially those made by John Ford (Sean Aloysius O’Feeny), who was born in Maine in 1895. He devoted about half of his prolific output to the American Western genre. According to his friend, Ted Dragon, Pollock enjoyed going to weekly Western or science-fiction movies, for which their affluent friend, Alfonso Ossorio, would pay[20]. It is very likely Ford directed most of those Westerns. These movies probably played at least as big a role in Pollock’s image of the Old West as did his few early years living in Western states.

Western themes even appeared in classical music, including Aaron Copeland’s music for ballets in the 1940s. In the 1940s, several Broadway musicals and, in the 1950s, many television programs, were based on Western themes. Of course these programs were rarely documentaries and did not reflect much of the reality of the pioneering days of the Western states. Steven Spielberg’s 2005 twelve-hour series, Into the West, is a remarkable exception. The eastern, or Big City, version of the cowboy evolved into the rebellious young men of the 1950s, not unlike Pollock’s real personality. Even fellow painters compared Pollock to Marlon Brando’s brooding character, Stanley Kowalski, in the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire. Commentators saw in the artist what might have been the playwright’s inspiration. Tennessee Williams and Pollock had become friends in 1944, several years before the 1951 play. Benton painted a portrait of the original theatrical cast of the play in 1948. Some commentators see the physical lines of the main character in Benton’s sketch for The Poker Party scene from the play as being those of the young Pollock[21]. The play has had several revivals, including the version performed in February 2005, again on Broadway.

After the wife of Pollock’s friend, Tony Smith, left him and went to Europe with the playwright Tennessee Williams in 1950, the lonely Smith spent even more time at the Pollock house. Tennessee was often seen on his bicycle going to and from the Pollock house. Williams’ play, The Rose Tattoo, and his novel, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, both critical successes, were released that year.

In 1913, Freud’s Totem and Taboo was published. In Paris, Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps premiered. The pioneering Armory Show in Manhattan shocked the art world with seminal examples of post-impressionism and cubism.

Number 1, 1949, 1949. Enamel and metallic paint on canvas, 160 × 259.1 cm, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Rita and Taft Schreiber Collection.

White Light, 1954. Oil, enamel and aluminium paint on canvas, 122.4 × 96.9 cm, The Museum of Modern Art, New York.