From the beginning when art first started out, many advancements and techniques were discovered and created.  A huge approach that challenged art was Jackson Pollock’s fractals.  Pollock’s fractals, physically, were paint splatters on a giant canvas.  The colors of the paint splatters depended on the theme he wanted to focus on.  In an online article, Perceptual and Physiological Responses to Jackson Pollock’s Fractals, it goes into depth about what the fractals actually meant and what affect it has on the human brain.  With experiments and comparisons, they had concluded that Pollock’s work really did have a deeper meaning to it than meets the eye.  I must agree with this article.  Pollock’s art might have just looked easy enough for just anyone to do, but the manner of how it was done and the goal of what he had wanted to portray through this painting, no one could truly replicate, thus, making his art incredible.

To look more at the physical aspect about the paintings, the article points out the inspirations, colors, and D value of the paintings.  Some of the art that Pollock had done was in nature.  He first started drawing out islands and perfected his technique over the next few plus years.  He would start off with an anchor layer and build up his colors from there, layering one after the other.  Pollock also had changed his D values.  D values are parameters used to describe patters that occur at different magnifications and how they combine to create fractal shapes.  The D values range between 1 to 2.  The closer the value is to 1, the smoother the area with no fractal structures, while 2 is where the area is completely.  According to the image on the left, on the D scale values are tied into certain nature fractals.  Now this is where the sight of a person is used because of the Pollock’s fractals.

According to a study, people first seem to scan over the artwork once and then look for a focal point to expand off of in order to study the details better.  Luminance, color, and orientation are factors that actually draw in the eye of a person more while viewing abstract and representational art. After a little experiment of showing images on a screen of Pollock’s work, the results showed the variation of where the viewers’ eyes would look, jumping from one spot to another.  It was confirmed, in the study, that the eyes usually follow a standard fractal trajectory of D value 1.5.  The study continues beyond that though.

Going more into the esthetics of fractals, another experiment was conducted.  They wanted to find out if the D value of the fractals presented were influencing the viewer’s esthetic preference, not directly, but subconsciously.  They presented two images with different D values to them, all in three different categories: nature’s processes, mathematicians, and humans. and asked the subject which one is more appealing to them.  The results showed that people’s preferences were between the range of 1.3-1.5, close to the results from the previous experiment mentioned.

To go even further, the research and experimentation continued to see how fractals affected humans’ physiological states.  In order to do this, they presented subjects with high and low stress level scenarios.  They would create a scene of stress while having to face a continuous image on the wall and then give these experimenters a 1-minute period of rest by. It showed, in the end, that the least stress risen was at the D value of 1.4.  To extend the research more, the researchers chose to go into the neurophysiological responses by having people be exposed to different levels of D values.  According to the D values, natural landscapes had more of relaxed results rather than townscapes.

So has Pollock really created something that is too easy for anyone to just do?  I personally think not.  Although Pollock had just did splatters of paint, there is some techniques behind it.  With the fractal data taken into account, one must know how much paint needs to be splattered onto the canvas in order to appealing and easy to look at for the viewer without stressing them out.  It is like putting red and blue together, but separately.  If one were to want red and blue paint to criss-cross each other without too much blend, the artist must know when to stop adding a certain amount of paint in order for each color to be distinct without ending up as a mush of purple.  I know I can have trouble trying to distinct how much color should be used, and I do screw up with the amount.  However, even if it is just paint splatters, I really think that they it can be incredibly appealing and fascinating to just look at and ponder about things.

Although people take Pollock’s splatter or fractals have everyone being confused or just not interested, there is more to the backstory of his methods.  From extensive research, it proves that humans do react to these fractals more than one would expect.  It is a subconscious process, but it does happen.  Our spectrum of fractals is quite average on the scale.  But this makes Pollock’s work way more intriguing.  How was Pollock able to figure out the right amount of paint to put on a canvas without the use of research?  How was he able to advance his technique even further?  I guess it takes a lot of time, observation, and patience, but Pollock really did an amazing job when presenting his art.