Revisiting Pollock's Drip Paintings

TL;DR

This paper critically examines the fractal analysis of Jackson Pollock's drip paintings, finding that their fractal properties are limited and can be artificially generated, thus questioning the reliability of fractal analysis for authentication.

Contribution

The study demonstrates that Pollock's paintings do not exhibit true fractal properties and that similar patterns can be produced by simple random processes, challenging previous authentication methods.

Findings

Paintings show limited fractal characteristics over small ranges.

Fractal features can be generated by simple random motion.

Fractal analysis alone is insufficient for authentication.

Abstract

We investigate the contentions that Jackson Pollock's drip paintings are fractals produced by the artist's Levy distributed motion and that fractal analysis may be used to authenticate works of uncertain provenance[1-5]. 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 Levy motion, both by freehand drawing and gaussian random motion. Several problems must therefore be addressed before fractal analysis can be used to authenticate paintings.