Abstract
Arising from: R. P. Taylor, A. P. Micolich and D. Jonas Nature 399, 422; 1999 Taylor et al. reply
We investigate the contentions that Jackson Pollock's drip paintings are fractals produced by the artist's Lévy distributed motion and that fractal analysis may be used to authenticate works of uncertain provenance1,2,3,4,5. We find that the paintings exhibit fractal characteristics over too small a range to be usefully considered as fractal; their limited fractal characteristics are easily generated without Lévy motion, both by freehand drawing and gaussian random motion. Several problems must therefore be addressed before fractal analysis can be used to authenticate paintings1.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abbott, A. Nature 439, 648–650 (2006).
Taylor, R. P., Micolich, A. P. & Jonas, D. Nature 399, 422 (1999).
Taylor, R. P., Micolich, A. P. & Jonas, D. Phys. World 12, 25–28 (1999).
Taylor, R. P., Micolich, A. P. & Jonas, D. Leonardo 35, 203–207 (2002).
Taylor, R. P. in Art and Complexity (eds Casti, J. & Karlqvist, A.) 117–144 (Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2003).
Mandelbrot, B. B. The Fractal Geometry of Nature (Freeman, New York, 1977).
Avnir, D., Biham, O., Lidar, D. & Malcai, O. Science 279, 39–40 (1998).
Mandelbrot, B. B. Science 279, 783 (1998).
Taylor, R. P. et al. Patt. Recog. Lett. (in the press) (http://materialscience.uoregon.edu/taylor/art/TaylorPRL.pdf).
Namuth, H. & Falkenberg, P. Jackson Pollock (Collectors Series film, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1950).
Landau, E. G. Jackson Pollock (Thames and Hudson, London, 1989).
Ott, E. Chaos in Dynamical Systems (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002).
Mureika, J. R., Cupchik, G. C. & Dyer, C. C. Leonardo 37, 53–56 (2004).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Jones-Smith, K., Mathur, H. Revisiting Pollock's drip paintings. Nature 444, E9–E10 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature05398
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature05398
- Springer Nature Limited
This article is cited by
-
Orientation judgment for abstract paintings
Multimedia Tools and Applications (2017)
-
Revisiting Pollock's drip paintings (Reply)
Nature (2006)