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If you think that a child could have come up with Jackson Pollock’s paintings, a new study suggests you might be right.
Scientists have found that the artist’s works – known for their dynamic swirls of oil and enamel paint – bear an uncanny resemblance to children’s imitations.
In experiments at the University of Oregon, kids aged between four and six successfully managed to create visually–pleasing Pollock–like replicas.
The amazing findings suggest true art can equally be created by ‘a critically acclaimed painter or a toddler with crayons’.
So can you tell the difference between Pollock’s million–dollar masterpieces and the kind of thing a parent might stick to the refrigerator?
Take our interactive test to find out!
For each round of the quiz, tap the image that you think was made by a child rather than Pollock and then hit ‘Next’.
Once you’ve reached the end, the interactive tool will tot up your total – and reveal if you have an eye for detecting counterfeits.
During the ‘dripfest’ experiments (pictured), both children and adults were asked to create a painting in Jackson Pollock’s style
Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) is famous for his drip technique in which he poured and dripped paint onto the canvas from above.
This typically involved releasing the paint from a saturated stick or even directly from the can – resulting in unique snapshots almost impossible to perfectly replicate without help from a machine.
‘Painting in the air above the canvas, his paint trajectories served as a direct record of his motions,’ say the study authors.
‘These records capture the multi–scaled movements of his body mechanics, including his hands, arms, torso, and legs.’
Pollock’s work dominated attitudes towards abstract expressionism, the US art movement that emerged after during the late 1940s and flourished in the 1950s.
But it but has also been ‘most mistreated’ by critics and misunderstood by the public, according to British art consultant Benjamin Weaver, who said: ‘It is often dismissed with the locution, “My kid could have done that”.’
To find out if there’s any truth to this, the scientists at University of Oregon recruited 18 children (aged four to six) and 34 adults (aged 18 to 25).
For the experiments, the volunteers were recruited to recreate paintings like Jackson Pollock’s by splattering diluted paint onto sheets of paper placed on the floor.
Pollock, a lifelong alcoholic, infamously died after driving and crashing his car while drunk in August 1956. Pictured, creating one of his famous drip paintings
This particular painting, called ‘Number 1A, 1948’, showcases Pollock’s classic ‘drip’ style for which he became known. Around the time it was created (1948), Pollock stopped giving his paintings evocative titles and began instead to number them
In the experiments, kids aged aged between four and six successfully managed to create visually–pleasing Pollock–like replicas. Findings suggest that children’s paintings bear a closer resemblance to Pollock paintings than those created by adults (pictured, child’s painting top and an adult’s attempt bottom)
Analysis showed both groups demonstrated ‘a high visual complexity’ due to ‘the multi–scaled paint structure generated by the pouring process’.
However, the adult paintings had higher densities of paint and wider paint trajectories – meaning greater application of paint covering more space.
On the other hand, kids’ paintings were characterised by smaller ‘fine–scale patterns’ and more bare gaps between clusters of paint.
Kids’ paintings had simpler, one–dimensional trajectories that changed direction less often compared to more varied trajectories of adults.
Next, some of the paintings created by adults were analysed for perceived complexity, visual interest and pleasantness.
Results showed that those paintings with more space between and less complex ‘fractal’ patterns (built from repeated shapes) were perceived as more pleasant.
Children’s paintings were not analysed for pleasantness but were found to be more attractive than the adult ones, the team report.
The study suggests artistic patterns made by kids are distinguishable from those created by adults when using the drip technique, but less so when compared with the work of the artist himself.
Pictured are of 23 poured paintings generated during the experiments. The first 19 are by adults and the last four are by children
Overall, children’s paintings bear a closer resemblance to Pollock paintings than those created by adults, the researchers report in Frontiers in Physics.
This suggests that Pollock had a child–like quality inherent in his methods or that a child could indeed ‘have done that’, as some critics say.
Study author Professor Richard Taylor told the Daily Mail: ‘The study does indeed suggest that a kid could paint closer to Pollock’s style than an adult.
‘The interesting thing is that the quote is dismissive towards kids, suggesting that Pollock produced art as bad as a kid. However our study shows that people prefer the look of the kids’ work – so in reality kids, like Pollock, produce beautiful art.
‘We hope our study will inspire kids to paint more – because they are good at it.’
In defence of Pollock, Weaver says the artist dripped paint onto canvases as a ‘spontaneous expression of his psyche and its fit or lack thereof into the everyday world’.
Weaver adds: ‘To those who might say, ‘My kid could have done that’, we reply ‘Maybe, but he couldn’t have meant it’.’
Fellow abstract expressionist Robert Goodnough once said: ‘The experience Pollock himself has had with this high kind of feeling is what gives quality to his work.
‘Of course anyone can pour paint on a canvas, as anyone can bang on a piano, but to create one must purify the emotions; few have the strength, will or even the need, to do this.’
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