RITUAL AND MYTH:NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE AND ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM

W. JACKSON RUSHING

A number of incipient Abstract Expressionists of the New York School paid studious attention to Native Ameri-can art in response to two interrelated trendsin American intellectual life that gainedstrength throughout the 193os and found fullexpression in the early t94os. The confluenceof these trends with the spiritual crisis createdby the failure of modernism to generate socialand political utopia, and heightened by therise of fascism, instilled in the "myth-mak-ers" of the American avant-garde a profounddesire to transcend the particulars of historyand search out universal values. I The firsttrend that fueled artistic interest in Indian artwas the belief that the vitality and spiritualityof Indian culture, as embodied in its art, couldmake a positive contribution to the Americaof the future. 2 The second trend, more centralto the present discussion, was the belief thatprimitive art was a reflection of a universalstage of primordial consciousness that stillexisted in the unconscious mind. The NewYork artists' awareness of Carl Gustav Jung'sconcept of a collective unconscious thatincludes early man's symbolic mode of think-ing prompted their fascination with themythic and ceremonial nature of primitiveart. Bemuse it had continued unbroken fromancient times up to the present, Indian art wasperceived as being different from other prehis-toric or primitive arts. A cultural continuumbridging the gap between primordial and

modem man, Native American art was seenas having special relevance for modem art andlife.

Although there was never a scarcity of interestin Native American art in twentieth-centuryAmerica, the early

1930ssaw increased pro-

duction of books, articles, and exhibitionsabout Indians and their art. Beginning withthe Exposition of Indian Tribal Arts at the GrandCentral Galleries in New York in 1931, theawareness of Native American culture as aspiritual and aesthetic resource grewexponentially through the 193os . By 1941 theidea had such validity in American artistic andintellectual life that when the Museum ofModern Art staged the now-legendary exhi-bition Indian Art of the United States, it wasmaking concrete a set of values that werealready within its audience's expectations.This popular exhibition - along with the finepermanent collections at the Museum of theAmerican Indian, Heye Foundation; theAmerican Museum of Natural History; andthe Brooklyn Museum - provided NewYork painters such as Jackson Pollock , Rich-ard Pousette-Dart , and Adolph Gottlieb withsources of imagery and ethnographic infor-mation that shaped their perceptions of the

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IHouse Screen ofChiefShakes,77ingit House Partition

Wrangell Village. Alaska.c. 1840

Cedar, n ative paint.human hair

179'35. x 107'/% in.(437 x 274 c111)

Courtesy of The Denver ArtMuseum. Colorado

Collected at Wrangell in 199by Wolfgang Paalen

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vitality and spiritual potential in NativeAmerican art.

Within the early New York School, painterswho also functioned as critics, theorists, andcurators contributed in these roles to the inte-gration of Indian art into modernist painting.As critics and provocateurs, John D. Graham,Wolfgang Paalen, and Barnett Newman werei mportant for stressing the spiritual qualityinherent in Indian art. Essential to their theo-ries and criticism of Native American andother primitive arts was an understanding ofmyth, totem, and ritual that relates to Jung'sideas and reveals these artists as the advocates0172 new, transformed consciousness for mod-ern man.

During the late 1930$ in America, Grahamwas perhaps the single most credible purveyorof the idea that atavistic myth and primitivismare an avenue to the unconscious mind andprimordial past. His System and Dialectics ofArt

(1937) is replete with ideas and languagesimilar to Jungian psychology. The book alsoreflects the tenor of the times in its revelationofa connoisseur's aesthetic and psychological,not purely ethnological, appreciation ofprimitive art. As Graham explained, "Thepurpose of art in particular is to reestablish alost contact with the unconscious (actively byproducing works of art), with the primordial

racial past and to keep and develop this con-tact in order to bring to the conscious mindthe throbbing events of the unconsciousmind. "3 The reason for bringing events of theunconscious into the conscious mind is relatedto Jung's belief that the emergence of the basicelements of the unconscious, the primitivestages of civilization, into waking conscious-ness could help modern man meet his need forspiritual transformation. 4

In "Primitive Art and Picasso" (1937) Gra-ham continued to emphasize the dichotomiesbetween conscious and unconscious mind andbetween modern and primitive culture. Heexplicitly stated the therapeutic importance ofprobing the unconscious: "The Eskimos andthe North American Indian masks with fea-tures shifted around or multiplied, and theTlingit, Kwakiutl, and Haida carvings inivory and wood of human beings and animals.these also satisfied their particular totemismand exteriorized their prohibitions (taboos) inorder to understand them better and con-sequently to deal with them more success-fully. "s After examining the relationship ofprimitive art to evolution, psychology, andplastic form, Graham concluded: "The art ofthe primitive races has a highly evocative qual-ity which allows it to bring to our conscious-

ness the clarities of the unconscious mind,stored with all the individual and collectivewisdom of past generations and forms... .An evocative art is the means and result of get-ting in touch with the powers of ourunconscious. " 6

This passage emphasizes that primitive art,such as Eskimo masks and Northwest Coastcarvings, has a powerful and purposive role toplay in a spiritual transformation of modernexperience through the merging of the con-scious and unconscious mind. Such wordsmay have encouraged Pollock, Gottlieb, andpossibly Pousette-Dart, all of whom knewGraham well, to make painterly reference tothe unconscious, as well as validating theirappreciation of Indian art.

The interest in Northwest Coast art, however,was spread by the Austrian-born SurrealistWolfgang Paalen more than Graham or any-one else, including Max Ernst. 7 Paalen hadstudied with Hans Hofmann in Germany andhad been associated with Andri Breton's cir-de in Paris. When he left Paris in May 1939,Paalen, like his fellow Surrealist KurtSeligmann, went directly to the PacificNorthwest Coast, where he collected a num-ber of masterpieces of Indian art,a includingthe House Screen of Chief Shakes, circa 1840 (pl.

1). Paalen was more than a mere collector of

primitive art; even anthropologists wereimpressed by his writings on the totemicunderpinnings of Northwest Coast art. 9

Although he resided in Mexico, Paalen wasfrequently in New York in the early and mid-1940s. Beginning in the spring of 1942 Paalenpublished in Mexico the art journal DYN,which was distributed primarily in New Yorkat the Gotham Book Mart, a regular meetingplace for artists. In "Le Paysage totdmique,"published in three installments that year inDYN, he effectively conveyed the complexityand the mythological basis of NorthwestCoast art. In December 1943 Paalen publisheda special double issue ofDYN, the Amer-indian Number (pl. 2). Besides NorthwestCoast art, the Amerindian Number containedarticles, illustrations, and book reviews deal-ing with a variety of Native American topics.In an editorial preface, sounding very muchlike Graham, Paalen announced, "An canreunite us with our prehistoric past and thusonly certain carved and painted images enableus to grasp the memories of unfathomableages."10 Occidental art had experienced anosmosis with Asia, Africa, and Oceania, and"nowit has become possible to understandwhy a universal osmosis is necessary, why thisis the moment to integrate the enormous trea-

sure of Amerindian forms into the conscious-ness of modern art.... To a science alreadyuniversal but by definition incapable of doingjustice to our emotional needs, there must beadded as its complement, a universal art: thesetwo will help in the shaping of the new, theindispensable world-consciousness. "I I

In "Totem Art," Paalen's essay in the issue, hewrote of the magnificent power of totempoles, counting them "among the greatestsculptural achievements of all times

'

"1 2 andobserved, as did critics of Indian Art oftheUnited States, "It is only in certain modernsculptures that one can find analogies to theirsurprising spatial conception. „ 13

Paalen's analysis of Northwest Coast sculp-ture reflected an interest in Jung: "Their greatart ... was of an entirely collective purpose:an art for consummation and not individualpossession. " 14 As early as 1945, in Form andSense, Paalefi had shown an awareness ofJungian theory. Is As with Graham'sJungian conception of primitive art, Paalenunderstood

that it was necessary to consider totemic systems. . . as corresponding to a certain developmentalstage of archaic mentality, the vestiges of which can

DIM4-5

AMERINDIANNUMBER

be found throughout mankind. For we can as-certain successive stages of consciousness: in orderto pass from emotion to abstraction, man isobliged, in the maturation of each individual topass through the ancestral stratification ofthought, analogously to the evolutionary stages ofthe species that must be traversed in the maternalwomb. And that is why we can find in everyone'schildhood an attitude toward the world that is simi-lar to that of the totemic mind.u

The third artist to play a major role in draw-ing attention to Indian art, Newman, metPaalen in 1g4o when the latter exhibited atJulien Levy's gallery along with Gottlieb.Newman shared Paalen's interest in the art ofthe Northwest Coast. 17 He was aware ofPaalen's and Ernst's interest in its totemicaspects." Newman shared Paalen's convic-tion that primitive art gave modern man adeeper sense of the primordial roots of theunconscious mind and that understanding andeven adapting primitive art values would cre-ate a more universal art in the present. There-fore, the internal bisection of form inNewman's own work, such as Onement I,1948, his commitment to the validity ofabstraction, and his metaphysical ambitions asa painter may be ascribed, at least in part, tothe influence of Indian, and in particular,Northwest Coast art. But perhaps Newman's

2Cover of the AmerindianNumber, Dyn, nos. 4-S

(December 1943).with drawing of a killer whale

by Kwakiutl artist JamesSpeck

575RUSHING

3RICHARD rouserrs-DART

Night World, 1948

Oil on canvas

351hx623'4in.

(141 X 159.4 cm)

Location unknown

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conviction that the ritual Dionysian purpose,the reference to myth, and the abstract formof Northwest Coast art could significantlyshape the direction of avant-garde art in NewYork is more strongly revealed in his activitiesas a curator and critic of primitive andneoprimitive art from 1944 to 1947.In 1944, with the assistance of the AmericanMuseum of Natural History, Newman orga-nized the exhibition Pre-Columbian Stone

Sculpture for the Wakefield Gallery in NewYork. 19 Lenders to the exhibition includedGraham and publisher Frank Crowninshield,whose collection of primitive art Grahamhelped assemble. In his brief introductorycomments to the catalogue Newman insistedthat pre-Columbian art be judged and appre-ciated as art "rather than works of history orethnology [so] that we can grasp their innersignificance. "2D For Newman the result of anew inter-American consciousness, based onan aesthetic appreciation of pre-Columbianart, would be the comprehension of "thespiritual aspirations of human beings" and thebuilding of permanent bonds. 21 Experiencingthis art is a way, Newman wrote, of"tran-scending time and place to participate in thespiritual life of a forgotten people." 22 ButNewman believed that ancient American art ismore than an avenue to the past, stating that

it has a "reciprocal power" that "illuminatesthe work of our time" and "gives meaning tothe strivings of our artists. "23

In 1946 Newman organized the exhibitionNorthwest Coast Indian Painting for the BettyParsons Gallery. He was once again assistedby the American Museum of Natural History,and Graham once again lent objects, as didErnst. One of Pollock's closest New Yorkfriends, Fritz Bultman, recalled that this was avery popular exhibition, which Pollockattended.24 Writing in the catalogue, New-man began with a polemic based on WilhelmWorringei s theory of primitive abstractionsand went on to describe the ritualistic paint-ings in the exhibition as "a valid tradition thatis one of the richest of human expressions. "26

In explaining how these Indians "depictedtheir mythological gods and totemic mon-sters in abstract symbols, using organicshapes,"27 Newman established the groundsfor defending abstract art: "There is answer inthese [Northwest Coast] works to all thosewho assume that modem abstract art is theesoteric exercise of a snobbish elite, foramong these simple peoples, abstract art wasthe normal, well-understood, dominant tradi-tion.

"aeAnd, as in his comments on Pre-

Columbian art, Newman stressed that anawareness of Northwest Coast art illuminates"the works of those of our modem Americanabstract artists who, working with the pureplastic language we call abstract, are infusingit with intellectual and emotional content, andwho. .. are creating a living myth for us inour own rime."

29

In January 1947 The Ideographic Picture,another Newman-organized exhibition,opened at the Betty Parsons Gallery. It fea-tured some of the artists, including MarkRothko, Theodoros Stamos, Clyfford Still,and Newman'himself, who were using a"pure plastic language" to create the "livingmyth of our own time." Newman's catalogueintroduction evoked the image of a Kwakiutlpainter whose abstract shapes were "directedby ritualistic will toward a metaphysicalunderstanding. "3O The paintings exhibitedwere the modern American counterpart to the"primitive impulse."

31In explaining just

what an ideographic picture might be, New-man quoted from the Century Dictionary:"Ideographic - a character, symbol or figurewhich suggests the idea of an object withoutexpressing its name."

Although New York School artists Pousette-Dart, Gottlieb, and Pollock did not exhibit inThe Ideographic Picture, they were indeedinventive and powerful manipulators of signsfrom the Native American past for the pur-pose of creating the myth of their own time.Despite dissimilar backgrounds and tempera-ments, these three painters produced a bodyof work in the 194os with many more com-mon elements than they would ever havewanted to admit.32 No small measure of thecommonality in these myth-oriented,neoprimitive canvases may be attributed tothe artists' shared interest in and experiencewith Native American art. Pousette-Dart,Gottlieb, and Pollock all created works whoserespective titles, imagery, and coarse surfacesevoke the dark, totemic otherworld of sub-terranean ritual: Night World, 1948 (pl. 3);Night Forms, circa 1949-50; and Night Sounds,circa 1944 (pl. 24). Pousette-Dart recently al-luded to such an evocation: "Many times I feltas if I were painting in a cave- perhaps we allfelt that way, painting then in New York." 3JLikewise, all three artists made what are bestdescribed as telluric pictures - elementalsigns, zoomorphs, and petroglyphs in strati-fied layers on seemingly primordial surfaces- the visual remembrances of archaic experi-ence in the Americas.

Although this essay ultimately focuses moreextensively and intensively on Pollock's trans-formations of Indian art, this interest cannotbe ignored in Pousette-Dart's and Gottlieb'spaintings. Pousette-Dart's awareness ofprimitive arts, like Pollock's, dates from hisyouth. His father, noted painter, lecturer, andart critic Nathaniel Pousette-Dart, ownedprimitive Indian objects and books on the sub-ject and supported his son's interest in it.(Indeed, Pousette-Dart still has in his hometwo pieces of Northwest Coast sculpture: onehad previously hung in his father's studio andthe other he had given to his father. 34) LaterPousette-Dart came to know more aboutNative American and other primitive artsfrom his frequent trips to the AmericanMuseum of Natural History as well as frombooks and various exhibitions- 35 Like Pollockand Gottlieb, Pousette-Dart was acquaintedwith Graham, whose personally inscribedSystem and Dialectics ofArt he owned and fromwhom he purchased primitive objects.

Pousette-Dart's notebooks from the late193os and early 194os show that he, too,noted the distinction between the consciousand unconscious mind: "Art is the resultmanifestation of the conscious mind reacting

upon a iubmind spirit-the crystallizationresulting when they meet-unknown experi-ence reacting upon known experience creat-ing a superhuman mystic body. "36 Herecently reaffirmed this belief, saying, "Everywhole thing has to do with the conscious andthe unconscious - the balance, the razor'sedge between the two. My work is the spiri-tuality of that edge."77

A reappraisal ofPousette-Dart in the contextof Native American traditions is timely, for hebelieves that his early work "had an innervibration comparable to American Indian art. . . something that has never been perceived.I felt close to the spirit of Indian art. My workcame from some spirit or force in America,not Europe. "38 Desert, 1940 (pl. 4), with itsmasks, birdlike forms, and tight interplay onthe surface oforganic and geometric formslocked together with a dark linear grid, ishighly reminiscent of the carved and paintedNorthwest Coast designs he saw at theAmerican Museum ofNatural History. Morethan forty years later he still felt moved by theNorthwest Coast images he saw on "paintedboards, tied together and painted with heavyblack lines. "39 His painting's title, Desert, andits rough, earthy surface also suggest theSouthwest. Thus it is instructive to note thatPousette-Dart felt sympathetic to the idea of

4RICHARD POUSErrE-DART

Desert, 1940Oil on canvas

43 x 72 in. (109.2 X 182.9 cm)The Museum of Modern Art,

New YorkGiven anonymously

277RUSHING

ii

3RICHARD POUSETTE-DART

Palimpsest, 1944Oil on canvas49 1/2 x 43 in.

(125.7 x 109.2 cm)Formerly collection Mrs.

Maximilian Rose

6ADOLPH GOTTLIEB

Pictograph-Symbol, 1942Oil on canvas

s4 x 4o in. (137.2 x Ro1.6 cm)Adolph and Esther Gottlieb

Foundation, New York01979

27$RUSHING

Pousette-Dart's Palimpsest, 1944 (pl. 5), stilllooks as radically new and as much a modern-ist paradigm as it must have in 1944, but it isnevertheless a reflection of an ancient Ameri-can tradition of painting and incising abstractimages on the earth itself. The compellingi mages of Native American rock art arecomposite creations consisting of countlesslayers built up on the surface, sometimes overmillennia. So too Pousette-Dart, as the wordpalimpsest suggests, obscured or partiallyerased earlier versions of the surface by"rewriting," inscribing new visual informa-tion on top of old. The title appealed to himbecause he "liked the idea of engraving overand over," an idea that simulated his own"process of evolving. "41 Rock art, especiallythat found in caves and rock shelters, has oftenbeen linked to shamanic activity. This recallsPousette-Dart's memory of "painting in acave," and such paintings as Night World do

imply the dark realm of myth, memory, anddream that the shaman seeks to explore in hisstate of transformation. As Pousette-Darthimself described the affinity between thatidea and the function of painting, "an artist isa transformer. "42

Gottlieb also explored the realms of the otherboth ancient and psychological, in his paint-ings. And like his contemporaries, he hadintellectual and aesthetic justification for hisbelief in the value of Native American art. Byhis own recollection, for example, Gottliebknew through his reading about Jung's idea ofthe collective unconscious.43 From Graham hederived an understanding of the collectivenature and spontaneous, unconscious expres-sion of the primitive arts. The primitivism ofhis own Pictograph series, 1941-51, is areflection of these ideas." Graham gaveGottlieb a copy of System and Dialeaics of Art,

parts of which can be interpreted as instruc-tions for making pictographs.

45It was at Gra-

ham's urging that Gottlieb began to collectprimitive art in 1935. 46 He expressed greatinterest in the Indian art that he saw at the Ari-zona State Museum during his stay in Tucsonin 193'7-38; he wrote of the weavings andancient pottery on display, "I wouldn't tradeall the shows of a month in New York for a

visit to the State Museum here. "4' He alsocame to know Indian art from his visits toNew York museums with Newman. In par-ticular he would have been familiar with thecollection of Indian art at the BrooklynMuseum, which was close to his home andwhere he exhibited watercolors in variousexhibitions between 1934 and 1944.48 Gottliebprobably saw the Indian paintings and sculp-tures from Arizona and New Mexico exhib-ited at the Brooklyn Museum in 1940. Givenhis admiration for Indian art and his museumoutings with Newman, it also seems likelythat Gottlieb would have attended Indian Artof the United States at the Museum of ModernArt in 1941. The exhibition included a full-scale canvas mural facsimile of the ancient pic-tographs found at Barrier Canyon in Utah.'

Gottlieb's inclusion of Native Americanforms in his paintings was predicated on hisbelief that all primitive and archaic art had aspiritual content accessible to anyone familiarwith the "global language of art," whichfunctioned as the "language of the spirit. "5OHe defended the use of primitive art as amodel for contemporary art, saying that the"apparitions seen in a dream, or the recollec-tions of our prehistoric past" were real and a

part of nature.s1 This might well be thedescription of his own Pictograph series:apparitions seen during shamanic trances ormythical images from the collective prehis-tory, preserved in the primal stages of symboland image making. Although Gottlieb's Pic-tographs do make reference to African, Oce-anic, and other archaic arts, the significantimpact of Native American art on his enig-matic and eclectic series of paintings isrevealed by two critical facts. First, Gottliebhimself chose to call his series ofneoprimitivepaintings Pictographs. Second, he beganthem only after ancient pictures-on-the-earthfrom Barrier Canyon were reproduced at theMuseum of Modern Art. Indeed, there is aprovocative similarity between Pictograph-Symbol, 1942, and the illustration on the frontendsheet of the 1941 catalogue Indian Art oJtheUnited States (pls. 6-7). Both might bedescribed as having totemic masks,zoomorphs, and abstract forms, both geo-metric and organic, painted in a palette ofearth tones and contained in rectangularcompartments in a grid formation.

The influence of Southwest Indian art wasapparent even before that of Northwest Coast

art in Gottlieb's Pictographs. The earth, clay,and mineral colors that came into his palettewhen he was still in Arizona, and that contin-ued in many of the Pictographs, are reminis-cent of the buffs, browns, tans, and rustcolors of the Pueblo pottery on display at theArizona State Museum. Likewise, Gottliebadopted the rough surfaces of real pic-tographs, as well as noting how the Pueblopotter adjusted figurative and abstract imagesto an overall design on a flat surface. A num-ber of these modern Pictographs, includingEvil Omen, 1946, contain "site and path"motifs-concentric circles that straighten outinto a line of travel - which are typical ofSouthwest rock art and pottery in general andspecifically resemble the Barrier Canyonpictographs.

The structure of Gottlieb's Pictographs is nodoubt related to Northwest Coast art, partic-ularly the Chilkat (Tlingit) type blanket, aswell as to other precedents in twentieth-cen-tury art. 52 Gottlieb's purchase of one suchblanket in 1942 postdates the beginning of his

Pictograph series, but from his museum visitshe certainly would have known the North-west Coast convention of bisecting animalforms and presenting these flat and seeminglyabstract sections of the body in compart-ments.S3 Some of the later Pictographs, suchas Night Forms, do have a surface organizationreminiscent of Gottlieb's Chilkat blanket. 14

After the Newman-curated exhibition ofNorthwest Coast art in 1946, totemic imag-ery appeared more frequently in Gottlieb's

279RUSHING

7Inner front cover, Frederick

H. ' %ouglas and Rentc'l-tarnoncourt,

Indian An of the United States(1941)

8ADOLPH GOTTUES

Pendant Image, 1946Oil on canvas

25 x 31 ?Is in. (63.5 x 81 cm)Formerly Solomon R.

Guggenheim Museum, NewYork, sold Sotheby Puke-

Bemet, New York, 23October 1975, lot 303

9ADOLPH GOTILISs

Vigil, 1948Oil on canvas

36 x 48 in. (91.4 x 121.9 cm)Whitney Museum of

American Art, New YorkPurchase

290RUSHING

Pictographs and ensuing Unstill Lifes. PendantImage, 1946 (pl. 8), has as the lower part of itscentral image a pair of bear's ears, in turn ani-mated with eyes. This is a typical conventionof Northwest Coast painting and sculpture,seen for example in the House Screen of ChiefShakes. Vigil, 1948 (p1. 9), shares with a num-ber of Gottlieb's paintings after 1946 a verticalformat derived from carved totem poles. Thetwo pole units left of center in Vigil featuremysterious hybrid animals that transformthemselves into other totemic forms. Thisorganic transformation of one pictorial unitinto another is, again, a standard form ofNorthwest Coast art.ss

Gottlieb used this totem pole format for theiconic central form of Ancestral Image, 1949(pl. 1o), one of the early Unstill Lifes. 56

Besides the painting's obvious verticality, itstitle also points to totem poles, which arerepresentations of ancestral, mythical clanprogenitors. The description of totem poles inthe catalogue Indian Art of the United Statespoints out that "they either display familycrests or relate family legends, and wereerected as memorials to dead leaders.

1157The

mask/face that Gottlieb placed atop the polein Ancestral Image is nearly a direct quota-tion of a Northwest Coast mythic figure,Tsonoqua. A female ogre who devours chil-dren after luring them to the woods with herwhistling, Tsonoqua is always shown with apuckered mouth, as is Gottlieb's figure. Amask of this type, from the permanent collec-tion of the Museum of the American Indian,was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Artin 1941 (pl. is).sa

Many of Gottlieb's Pictographs have tidessuggesting ritual and, by implication, trans-formations In 1947 he made explicit his ownawareness of the need to redeem modemexperience and the artist's function in thattransformation: "The role of the artist, ofcourse, has always been that of image-maker.Different times require different i mages.Today when our aspirations have beenreduced to a desperate attempt to escape fromevil ... our obsessive, subterranean andpictographic images are the expression of the

neurosis which is our reality. "60 In creatingdifferent images of2 neurotic reality, Gottliebsubjected the primal imagery of NativeAmericans, the unconscious mind, to the con-scious plastic order inherent to a modernpainter. Estranged from their original con-text, the Indian motifs are transfigured andbecome more than mere references to ancientAmerican art. They become revitalized andtake on new meaning as components in paint-ings that attempt to redeem the darkness ofthe war years by bringing to the surface theatavistic roots ofmodern experience.

In contrast to Gottlieb, whose brief residencein Arizona was his first real break from anessentially urban experience, Pollock grew upin the Western states and his interaction withNative American an and culture began earlyin life. In 1923, when Pollock was eleven, he,his brothers, and their friends explored theIndian ruins (cliff dwellings and mounds)north of their home near Phoenix.6 1 Pollock'syouthful exploration of this site was not anisolated encounter with Indian culture, as hisbrother Sanford reported, "In all our experi-ences in the west, there was always an Indianaround somewhere. "62 Later in New York,Pollock often spoke to his friends as if he hadactually witnessed Indian rituals as a boy. 63

Once in New York, Pollock enhanced hisknowledge of Indian art and culture. Some-time between 1930 and 1935 he and hisbrother purchased twelve volumes of theAnnual Report of the Bureau ofAmericanIndian sand painting. He likens the courageand the spirit of the sand painters and theimpermanence of their materials to his owndescription of "the meaning of the artist" asone "who deals with the moment and eter-nity. "b The surface and structure of Sym-phony Number I, The Transcendental, 1944,continues the investigation of Indian tradi-tions, orchestrating them on a heroic scale.

10ADOLPH GOTTLIEB

Ancestral Image, 1949Oil on canvas

38 x 3o in. (96.5 x 76.2 cm)Destroyed by fire in 1953

Adolph and Esther GottliebFoundation, New York

C 1977

11Tsonoqua Mask

19th centuryCarved wood

Height to in. (25.4 cm)Museum of the AmericanIndian, Heye Foundation,

New York

aStRUSHING

12JACSSON POLLOCX

Bird, 1941

Oil and sand on canvas27'/2 x 24 in. (69.8 x 61 cm)

The Museum of Modern Art,New York

Gift of Lee Krasnerin memory ofJackson Pollock

28;RUSHING

Ethnology [hereafter cited as BAEReport],"which feature detailed scholarly field reportson a variety of topics related to the ethnologyand archaeology of Native Americans and areprofusely illustrated with hundreds of re-productions, including color plates, ofancientand historic Indian art objects. In particularthere are illustrations of ritual paraphernaliaand rare documentary photographs of latenineteenth-century and early twentieth-cen-tury Indian rituals. Over the years Pollockused these reports as a rich and authenticsource of Indian imagery. He also readDYN,6

5 and other titles in his library attest tohis broad interest in mythology, anthropol-ogy, and the primitive art of Indian and othercultures.-

Textual materials on the Indian helped Pollockunderstand the Indian images he absorbedduring museum visits in New York. Bultmanreported that he and Pollock "went every-where looking at Indian art" and that theiroutings took them more than once to theMuseum of the American Indian and to theAmerican Museum of Natural History, wherethey saw Northwest Coast att. 67 Pollock'sinterest was not limited to the SouthwestIndian art of his youth but rather "includedthe whole range of Indian arts in which he

found very positive images. "6B Pollock wouldalso have learned about Northwest Coast artfrom the Amerindian Number ofDYN,which published his painting Moon WomanCuts the Circle. Pollock also saved an issue ofthe new journal Iconograph that dealt withNorthwest Coast art and its influence on NewYork's painters of "Indian space. "69

Naturally, Pollock was one of the many mem-bers of the New York art community whoattended Indian Art of the United States.'0

Bultman recalls that the 194! exhibition "gen-erated a great deal of interest. "71 When askedif there was a broad interest by artists in Indianart, he replied, "Everyone was aware of Indianart at that time. "72 Dr. Violet Staub de Laszlo,then Pollock's Jungian psychotherapist, re-ported that the exhibition fascinated Pollock.After his extended visits, they discussed thesand paintings made at the museum by visit-ing Navajo artists,'3 and during analysis Pol-lock's comments revealed a "kind ofshamanistic, primitive attitude toward [their]images. "74 As Bultman attests, Pollock wasaware of the "whole shamanistic dream cul-ture of Indians.'" Pollock was deeply

involved with Paalen's idea of passingthrough "emotion to abstraction," "ancestralstratifications," and "evolutionary stages ofthe species," and he may have met Paalenthrough their dealer Peggy Guggenheim ortheir mutual friend Robert Motherwell.

During this period Pollock also read thewritings of Graham. Graham's "PrimitiveArt and Picasso" had impressed Pollock to thedegree that he made a point of meeting him,probably in 1937. 76 Indeed, Pollock still had acopy of that article and System and Dialectics oArt at the time of his death. 77 Graham'sknowledge of the literature on Russianshamanism paralleled Pollock's awareness ofNative American shamanic art. 78 They shareda "coinciding and reinforcing interest inprimitivism and Indian art. " 79 Because of P01-lock's well-established and deep involvementwith the art and ideas of Native Americans,his intellect and artistic sensibility were fertileground for Graham's conclusions aboutprimitive art and the unconscious mind. In hisdiscussion of Eskimo masks and Northwest

Coast carvings Graham referred to primitiveart as the result of immediate access to an .unconscious mind that is both collective andancient. Graham wrote, "Creative images arecircumscribed by the ability to evoke theexperiences of primordial past ... and theextent of one's consciousness. " 80 Pollockpointed out unequivocally the importance ofthese ideas in his own work: "The source ofmy painting is the unconscious. „81

According to Bultman, the direct, simplifiednature of Graham's writings made him afriendly source of Jungian theory for Pollock.In addition, Bultman recalls, "Jung was avail-able in the air, the absolute texts were not nec-essary, there was general talk among painters.... Tony Smith also knew the Jungian mate-rial firsthand when he became a friend of Pol-lock. Smith was a walking encyclopedia ofJung, shamanism, magic in general, ritual, theunconscious. People were alive to this mate-rial (Jung, dreams, Indian shamanism] andhoped this material would become universallyknown and used. "92

Pollock was a logical participant in the widerAmerican interest in Indian culture reflectedin the enthusiasm for Indian Art of the United

States. His personal and psychological moti-vations drew him to the formal power andmythic content of Indian art. In retrospect itseems only natural that Pollock, of all theNew York artists interested in myth andprimitivism, had the most intense and innova-tive response to the influence of NativeAmerican art. Careful scrutiny of selectedworks in Pollock's oeuvre reveals conclusivelythat between 1938 and 1950 (pls. 12-13) heborrowed with specificity and intent fromparticular works of Indian art known to him.The degree of similarity is so high as to dis-prove Pollock's assertion in 1944: "Peoplefind references to American Indian art andcalligraphy in parts of my paintings. Thatwasn't intentional; probably was the result ofearly enthusiasms and memories. "83

All of Pollock's varied incorporation andtransfigurations of Indian art were informed

and sustained by a shamanic intent. In the firstperiod of Pollock's artistic dialogue withNative American art, from 1938 to 1947, heexperimented with the visual grammar andancient motifs of Indians as a way of penetrat-ing the unconscious mind. This painterlymethod of shamanic self-discovery wasrelated to two Jungian principles widelyknown in the late 19306 and early 1940s: thatmyths are archetypal forms that codify basichuman experiencesa' and that "conscious andunconscious are interfused," therefore trans-formed by allowing the consciousness to bedrawn into the realm of the symbolic image. B5

In such paintings as Guardians of the Secret,

1943 (Pl. 17), Pollock relied on Indian myths,symbols, totems, and masks associated withrituals. The Indian images themselves arequoted, distorted, transformed and alwaysserve as a vehicle for Pollock's inimitableimprovisations. In this period he often used anintentionally primitive, pictographic style ofpainting/drawing to refer to both archaic con-sciousness and the evolutionary stages of art.

13JACKSON POLLOCK

Untitled, 1943Brush and pen and ink,

colored pencil brushed withwater on paper18 3, x 24 '/, in.(47.6 x 62.9 cm)

Lorna Poe Miller,Los Angeles

283RUSHING

14JACKSON POLLOCK

Pages from a Sketchbook,c. 1938

Brush and ink on paper17%x13

7/sin.

(44.8 x 35.2 cm)The Metropolitan Museum

of Arc, New YorkGift of Lee Krasner Pollock,

1982

i5Red-on-BuffPlate (Saes Cn1r)

Hohokam, SouthernArizona, c. goo

PotteryDiameter 11 V,. in. (29.3 cm)

Excavated at Snaketown,Arizona. 1934-35

Collected Arizona StateMuseum, University of

Arizona, Tucson

284

RUSHING

In the second period of Pollock's pictorial dia-logue with Native American art, from 1947 to1gso, his overt use of Indian motifs gave wayto an emphasis on art as a shamanic processfor healing. Thus the drip paintings use theinformation about the self, which Pollockdiscovered by exploring the symbolic realm,by making the mythic/pictographic paintingsin his earlier period. Pollock developed a per-sonal art-a-healing-process derived in partfrom the concepts of Navajo sand painting,which he had witnessed at the Museum ofModem Art in 1941.

Perhaps the earliest examples of Indian influ-ence in Pollock's work are the pictographicdrawings in his sketchbooks from around1938 (pl. 14). This kind of intentionally primi-tive drawing may have had its original impe-tus not in Surrealist automatism but inPollock's knowledge of pittographs.86 For

example, BAE Report I (188x) containednumerous images ofIndian pictographs 8 7

and its information about rock art ran parallelto Graham's idea about primitive art: "Therecord of all human intercourse is perpetuatedthrough the medium of symbols.

"96BAE

Director John Wesley Powell wrote, "Natureworship and ancestor worship are concomi-tant parts of the same religion, and belong to astatus of culture highly advanced and char-acterized by the invention of pictographs... .These pictographs exhibit the beginning ofwritten language and the beginning of picto-rial art. "89

Stressing the primacy of Indian pictographs inthe development of Pollock's mythic picturesis not necessarily a denial of Surrealist influ-ence. Pollock was cognizant that the uncon-scious was the source of imagery for bothSurrealist and shamanic art but that theresources of the unconscious had not beenfully explored.

98What Pollock found accept-

able in Surrealism, because it mirrored hisown conclusions, was not so, much a stylisticvocabulary but the idea of painting from the

unconscious. 91 His loose, crude, linear lan-guage in these early drawings and mythicpaintings is an effort to evoke an ancient,more authentic kind of automatic writing.

For Pollock pictographs were also significantas an organic, visual record of the develop-ment of consciousness from primordial timesto the present. Rend d'Harnoncourt describedthe Barrier Canyon pictographs as a blend ofpast and present: "They are still made today incertain sections. In the Southwest ... Mod-em Navajo drawings in charcoal may befound on top of ancient Pueblo rock paint-ings.... It is usually impossible to date rockpictures, though they were obviously madeover a long period of time. "42 Rock art, withits "masterly treatment of flat spaces, "9J rep-resents superimposed layers of artistic activityfrom different prehistoric and historicperiods. The stratification of human culturalactivity is an important idea in Jungian theory.Jung wrote, "Through the buried strata of theindividual we come directly into possession ofthe living mind of ancient culture. "9" Pollockresponded in 1941 by mixing sand and oilpaints and painting The Magic Mirror, whichhas a faded and textured surface very muchlike the replicas ofBarrier Canyon pic-tographs exhibited at the Museum of ModemArt that same year.

One of the objects seen by Pollock at IndianArt of the United States, a pottery bowl madeby the prehistoric Hohokam culture of south-ern Arizona, circa goo (pl. 15), inspired Mural,

1943 (Pl. r6), which he painted for PeggyGuggenheim. Pollock was an ardent admirerof the figurative motifs found on ancientSouthwestern pottery, and he no doubt recog-nized the painted figure on the Hohokambowl as being the kachina (a supernaturalPueblo spirit) Kokopelli, a humpbacked fluteplayer associated with fertility. According toPueblo mythology, Kokopelli, because of hismisshapen appearance, slyly seduces andimpregnates young women without theirknowledge. 9S These women are usuallyshown clinging to Kokopelli's back as in theHohokam bowl: "the figures are often re-peated in long rows" and "the drawings areexecuted with a broad, free-flowing line."96Likewise, Pollock created in Mural a rhythmicline of black, humpbacked flute players whodance from left to right with female figuresclinging to their backs. Guggenheim herselfnoted, "The mural was more abstract thanPollock's previous work. It consisted of acontinuous band of abstract figures in a rhyth-mic dance painted in blue and white and yel-low, and over this black paint was splashed in

a drip fashion. "97 The manner in which Pol-lock created Mural suggests a shaman's psy-chic preparation before a round of ritualactivity. After weeks of brooding contem-platively in front of the blank canvas, "hebegan wildly splashing on paint and finishedthe whole thing in three hours."" That Pol-lock, after finally beginning to paint, did notstop until the image was complete suggeststhat for him creating the image was a kind ofritual performance.

In 1943, in addition to painting other Indian-inspired works, Pollock continued toproduce, in the style of The Magic Mirror, sur-ftce-oriented paintings covered withnonspecific stenographic marks, hieroglyphicslashings, numbers, and primitive symbols.For Pollock, like Gottlieb, pictographicelements must have represented archaic kindsofwriting that signify the strata of conscious-ness and culture. Through the manipulationof primitive calligraphy, stick figures,zoomorphs, and totems, Pollock touched, as ashaman does, a world beyond ordinaryperception.

Prior to the drip paintings, Guardians of theSecret (pl. 17) is Pollock's most dramatic andsuccessful visual statement about theshamanic potential of Indian art and theunconscious mind. At the heart of the imageis a rectangular space filled with pictographicsecrets." Here, in an agitated linear code, isthe timeless seed of human ritual. Flankingand guarding the secrets are two totemic fig-ures highly reminiscent of Northwest Coastpole sculpture. Pollock made a more overtreference to Northwest Coast art just to theleft of the center at the top of the canvas. Out-lined in white is the mask of the mythicalTsonoqua (seen in Gottlieb's Ancestral Image),which Pollock knew from visits to theMuseum of the American Indian and Indian

Art ofthe United States. This confirms theoverriding sense that Guardians of the Secret is

the painterly evocation of a ritual scene.D'Harnoncourt's description of the North-west Coast tradition also supports this idea:"Beside the dark sea and forest there devel-oped an art in which men, animals, and godswere inextricably mingled in strange, intricatecarvings and paintings. Religion andmythology found their outlet in vast cere-monies in which fantastically masked figuresenacted tense wild dramas."f 0 D

16JACKSON POLLOCK

Mural, 1943Oil on canvas

95 3: x 237'/a in.(243.2 x 603.2 cm)

Museum of Art, Universityof Iowa, Iowa City

Gift of Peggy Guggenheim.1948

assRUSHING

17JACKSON POLLOCK

Guardians of the Secret, 1943Oil on canvas

48 Ye x 75 ' in.(112.9 x 191.5 cm)

San Francisco Museum ofModem Art

Albert M. Bender Collection.Albert M. Bender

Bequest FundPurchase

286RUSHING

In its formal arrangement Guardians of the

Secret refers to Southwest, not NorthwestCoast, rituals. Immediately to the right of theTsonoqua image Pollock placed a black in-sect. This curious creature, curled up in a fetalposition, derives from the painted decorationon a Mimbres pottery bowl (pl. 1 8).

101 Thepainting's three flat, horizontal registers ofactivity, hieratically framed by the totemicfigures, suggests that it is a "picture-within-a-pitture. " 10' The probable source of this deviceis a pair of illustrations accompanying an arti-cle on the Indians of Zia Pueblo in BAE Report

i i (1894). 103 The first of these (pl. 19) showsthe altar and sand painting of the Zia SnakeSociety. This image, like Guardians of the

Secret, has its two-dimensional surfacedivided into flat, horizontal planes. Upper-most in the picture is a roughly rectangularwood altar, which is braced by two hieraticposts topped by totemic heads. Below thealtar are two sand paintings, the lower ofwhich shows an animal with sharply pointedcars framed in a rectangular space. Thus thisillustration of a ceremonial setting has acompositional arrangement similar to Guard-

ians of the Secret, is a picture of a (sand) picture,and depicts at the bottom an animal similar tothe dog/wolf in the bottom register of Pol-lock's painting. The second illustration (pl.:o) shows the altar of the Knife Society hi-eratially flanked by two clan officials who aretheurgists. Again, the two-dimensional sur-face is organized in flat, horizontal planes, andthe central altar and fetishes are protected,braced by the two officials. This Zia custom,the report explains, is different from the Zuni,"some of (whose] altars have but one guard-ian. " 10" Pollock's image may now be seen toindicate a pair of secret society guardians whoprotect a ritual painting made for healingpurposes.

i8Ponery Bowl

Mimbres, Swarts Ruin, NewMexico, c. Iaoo

The Taylor Museum,Colorado Springs,

Colorado

19Altar and Sandpainting oftheSnake Society at Zia Pueblo,

illustrated in Annual Report ofthe Bureau ofAmerican

Ethnologyti (1894)

20Guardians ofthe Knife Society,

from Annual Report of theBureau ofAmerican Ethnology

110894)

287RUSHING

21JACKSON POLLOCKNight Mist, c. i944

Oil on canvas36 x 74 in. (91.4 x 188 cm)

Norton Gallery and School ofArt, West Palm Beach,

Florida

288RUSHING

The following year Pollock continued hisexploration of primitive kinds of writing,pictographic elements, which indicate cul-tural, especially artistic, evolution. In Night

Mist, circa 1944 (pl. a1), Pollock overlaid ahard, flat space with a ritual frenzy of roughand fast passages of paint. The surface waspainted over with layers of symbols andforms, recalling cave walls or ritual chambers.Like Indian pictographs, each variety of markor line, whether drawn, slashed, or inscribedin paint, is the record of a different and endur-ing age of image making on the pictorial sur-face. Paintings like this and Guardians oftheSecret explored that point in cultural historywhen the creation of symbols was a ceremo-nial activity. Pollock produced other works in1944 that show both continued interest in thewritings of Graham and the expressive poten-tial of mask forms. 10s Graham's "PrimitiveArt and Picasso" was illustrated with an Eski-mo mask (pl. aa) chosen to support his refer-

ence to Eskimo masks with the facial featuresrearranged. 106 This article alerted Pollock spe-cifically to the formal power of Indian art,attracting him to it in much the same way thatPicasso felt drawn to the conceptual treatmentof the human figure in African art, but Pol-

lock was already familiar with this tradition ofmasks. An Inuit mask of the same variety (pl.2.3) illustrated an article on masks and aborigi-nal customs in BAE Report 3 (1884), 1 Q7 whichPollock had owned for at least two yearsbefore the publication of "Primitive Art andPicasso." This ceremonial mask has the eyesstacked one above the other, a twisted mouthcurving up the side of the face, and knobscarved in relief to suggest teeth. Pollock'sawareness of these Eskimo masks served asthe inspiration for his painting Night Sounds,circa 1944 (pl. 24). Pollock distorted and exag-gerated the mask even further so it practicallyfills the composition. Despite this accentuatedelongation, the derivation of this image fromEskimo masks is still quite obvious.

12

Wooden MaskEskimo, Yukon River region.

Alaska, c. 1900The University Museum,

University of Pennsylvania,Philadelphia

23Wooden Mask, Inuit,

illustrated in Annual Report of

the Bureau ofAmericanEthnology 3 (1884)

24JACKSON POLLOCK

Night Sounds, c. 1944Oil and pastel on paper

43 x 46 in. (1o9.2 x 116.8 cm)Estate of Lee Krasner Pollock

389RUSHING

Like his Totem Lesson 1, 1944 (p1. 25), Pol-lock's Totem Lesson s,1945 (p1.26), once againmakes reference to ritual transformation. Thelarge, dark zoomorph in the center, withupraised arm and white pictographic writingon its body, is probably a painterly variationof the hard-edged Sky Father image in aNavajo sand painting illustrated in Indian Artof the United States (p1.27).

106In the South-

west, sand paintings are an integral part ofelaborate ceremonies designed to cureillnesses by restoring the patient to wholenessand to harmony with nature. Both physicaland psychic ailments are cured by the pic-tures, whose iconography and process ofcreation are known only by special medicinemen, called singers among the Navajo. Thesesingers generate flat, linear images by sprin-kling colored sand or pulverized minerals in afreehand manner directly onto the buckskincanvas on the ground or onto the grounditself The Indian artist squeezes the coloredsands tightly between thumb and forefingerand releases them in a controlled stream,resulting in a "drawn" painting. Pollock, too,achieved "amazing control" in a seeminglyfreewheeling process by using a bastingsyringe `like a giant fountain pen. "109 Theother similarities between the sand painter's

process and that used by Pollock are at onceobvious. Just as the sand painter worksstrictly from memory, Pollock also workedwithout preliminary drawings, characterizinghis paintings as "more immediate - moredirect."'

f0The Navajo sand painting men-

tioned here measured eight by ten feet. Thismeant it "functioned between the easel andmural," which is how Pollock described theincreased scale in his painting."'

In the face of bouts with alcoholism and deepdepression Pollock struggled, like the Indianpatient, for self-integration. Perhaps this wasthe basis of his fascination. with Indian sandpaintings like those shown in BAE Report 16

(1897)112

and the ones made in New York in1941 by Navajo singers. Because of Pollock'sown search for wholeness and his obviousinterest in sand paintings, his drip paintings,such as Autumn Rhythm, 1g5o (pl. z8), may beinterpreted as ritual acts in which Pollockstands for the shaman who is his own patient.In 1947 Pollock made the following statementabout his work: "My painting does not comefrom the easel. I hardly ever stretch my can-vas before painting. I prefer to tack the un-

stretched canvas to the hard wall or floor. Ineed the resistance of a hard surface. On thefloor I feel nearer; more a part of the painting,since this way I can walk around it, work

from the four sides and literally be in thepainting. This is akin to the method of theIndian sand painters of the West.

"113By being

in the painting (pl. 29) Pollock became like theNavajo patient, the one sung over, who sitsatop the sand painting, the focal point of thecuring ceremony (p1. 30). The Navajo believethat contact with the numinous power of theimage unifies the patient with nature byputting him in touch with mythic progeni-tors. 114 As Pollock said, "When I am in mypainting . . . I have no fears about makingchanges, destroying the image, etc., becausethe painting has a life of its own.... When Ilose contact with the painting the result is amess. Otherwise there is a pure harmony, aneasy give and take, and the painting comes outwell."

115 Sand paintings also have lives oftheir own from sunrise to sunset, after whichthey are ritually destroyed. The Indian sandpainter, too, must not lose "contact with thepainting" and demonstrates great concentra-tion; he is free to correct and adjust the com-position so that, according to the Navajo, "allis in accord again.

"116In both Pollock's and

the singer's situation the process and the expe-rience have as much importance as the imagecreated.

26JACKSON POLLOCK

Totem Lesson a, 1945Oil on canvas

72 x 6o in. (182.9 x 152.4 c1n)Estate of Lee Krasner Pollock

27Sand Painting

Navajo, 2oth century?Collection of the

Wheelwright Museum, SantaFe, New Mexico

aptRUSHING

28JACKSON POLLOCK

Autumn Rhythm, 195oOil on canvas105 X 207 in.

(166.7 x 525.8 cm)The Metropolitan Museum

of ArtGeorge A. Heam Fund,

1957

202RUSHING

In 1947, the year the drip paintings emerged,Pollock said, "I have always been impressedwith the plastic qualities of American Indianart, The Indians have the true painter'sapproach in their capacity to get hold ofappropriate images, and in their understand-ing of what constitutes painterly subject mat-ter. ... Their vision has the basic universalityof all real art.

"117There is a significant cor-

relation between Pollock's perception of In-dians as those who "get hold of appropriatei mages" and Graham's belief that exposure tothe unconscious is a `journey to the primor-dial past for the purpose of bringing out somerelevant information.

"11s The result of thefirst is a painterly subject matter and of thesecond, a spontaneous expression of the pri-mal self; both are primary characteristics ofthe drip paintings. For Pollock immersion inthe ancient imagery of Indians was a mode ofaccess to the unconscious. He knew and val-ued the Indian concept of "discovering one'sown image" through shamanic experience,and he and Bultman often discussed "magicand the shamanistic cult of traveling to spiritworlds.-' 19 The world of the spirit is the ulti-mate nature of the self, and Pollock believedthat nature as self was approachable through

dreams and visions, which yielded his imag-ery. 1

20 The gripping brilliance of Guardians of

the Secret indicates that for Pollock coming toknow the self was like standing at the heart ofa flame. It is a painting that exudes the ecstasyof ceremony, and yet the violent energy of itssurface and the elusive meaning of thepictographic secrets suggest that realization ofthe discovered self was an arduous task. Theloosening up, the automatic quality of the lin-ear movement in the drip paintings, was anattempt to reveal the intangible contents of theunconscious mind.

The abandonment of figuration and thesweeping poetic gesture in such works asAutumn Rhythm may again refer to NativeAmerican art. As stated in BAE Report I

(1881), "The reproduction of apparent ges-ture lines in the pictographs made by our In-dians has, for obvious reasons, been mostfrequent in the attempt to convey thosesubjective ideas which were beyond the rangeof an artistic skill limited to the direct repre-sentation of objects."121

The move away from overt representation toconvey subjective content is Pollock's "stron-gest point about Indian culture"

122and is illu-

minated by his legendary reply to HansHofmann, "I am nature. "123 The strongest,most poignant fact of Indian life to Pollock

was that "people living close to nature foundnature in themselves rather than nature as amotif. " 12 ' It follows that if Pollock weregoing to paint from nature, the resultingi mage would be an observation of the self. LeeKrasner's comments on the "I am nature"statement support this idea: "It breaks onceand for all the concept that was more or lesspresent in the Cubist derived paintings, thatone sits and observes nature that is out there.Rather it claims a oneness. "125

The drip paintings speak of a oneness, for Pol-lock must have.felt they were the pictorial re-alization of his transformed consciousness.Elements of his unconscious mind hadmerged with his waking conscious, and theresult wasp lengthy period of abstinence fromdrink (1947 to 1950), a sense of wholeness,and a marked transformation of his paintingstyle. Typically, the drip paintings themselvesare the merger of opposites: the image andpictorial ground become one, the gesture andimage become one, drawing and kinds ofwriting become painting, and, finally, thework of art is the ritual process. In these paint-ings made between 1948 and 195o Pollocksought unity between conscious decision andprimitive instinct, and with the impetus ofNative American art he found it.

While Pollock asserted a oneness with nature,Gottlieb spoke of "going forward to nature,"and Pousette-Dart speaks ofbelieving "in theprimal' and "whole thinking. " 126 In theirsearch for holistic experience these paintershelped resolve the crisis of subject mattercommon to American artists in the t94os byestablishing themes of universal relevancebased on Native American traditions, images,and art processes. Through myth making,evocation of archaic surfaces, and transforma-tion of indigenous primitive forms in a man-ner both intuitive and calculated, theyincorporated ancient American art into amodem Abstract Expressionism. Each in hisown way helped fulfill the prophecy so oftenheard in New York during the 193os and1940s, particularly in the critical voices ofNewman, Graham, and Paalen, that NativeAmerican art and culture could be thewellspring for a modem art that portrayed thecollective experience.

29HAMS NAMUTH, Jackson PoMadt

in Studio-Painting, 19sI,photograph

30Navajo mother holdings"

child and sitting on sandpainting

393RUSHING

J

5. Mark Rothko first used thearm wyt,+rker in 1946 in refer-ence to the work o(Clyford Still,whoa "picmrial contusions"Rothko (amid allied to those of a"small band ofMyth-Makers'then making an impression on theNew York sane. See MarkRoehko. introduction to Clyf sdStill, exh. at . (New York: An ofThis Century. 1946)-a. A complete discussion of"said numerous other issues relat-ing to the present essay arc con-caned in my masters thesis, "TheInfluence f American Indian Artan Jackson Pollock and the EarlyNew York School" (University ofTexas at Austin. 1984). It shouldbe noted that working irdepen-denty I have arrived at someconclusions similar to thoseexpressed by j. Kirk Vanedoe inhis essay. "Abstract Expression-ism." in "Prissitivion"in TwentiethCentury Art, each. cat. (New York:Museum of Modern Art, 1984).615-59. As my essay here demon-strates, however. the influence ofNative American art on both thestyle and content ofealy AbstractExpressionism was much stran-ger than suggested by Varnedoe.

394RUSHING

3. Jolt D. Graham. Symem andDidemo of An, with criticalineroductia5 by Morris EptteinABentuck (t93T Baltimore: JdsnsHopkins Press, 1971), 95.4. For a discuston of the relevanceof this aspect ofCat Guwv Jungfor New York artists in the early19406. see Stephen Polari, "TheIntellectual Roots ofAbstractExpressionism: Mark Rothko,"Arts 54 (September 1979): 136.S. John D. Graham, "PrimitiveArt and Picasso." Magazine ofAri30 ( April 1937):337.6. Ibid.7. Frita Buleman, telephone con-versation with author. 26 April5984. For information on MaxEtmt's (and the other Surrealists')preoccupation with NativeAmerican and Eskimo art, seeElizabeth Cowling "The Eski-mos, the American Indians, andthe Surrealists," Art History ,(December t978):484-99.8. Dore Ashton, The New YolkSchool (New York: Penguin.1972),525.9. Ibid.to. Wolfgang Psalm, editorial,DYN, non. 4-5 (December 1943):verso frontispiece.11. Ibidta. Wolfgang Psasn. " TotemArt." DYN, non. 4-5 (December1943): 17.13. Ibid.. 13.14. Ibid., 18.is. Ashto n. New York School, 5o5.16. Paalen, " Totem Art," i8.17. Paalen, in fict, had givenBarnett Newman an autographedcopy ofFeat and Store. See Bar-bara Rein, "'Primitivism' in theWriting of Barnett Newman: AStudy in the Ideological Back.ground of Abstract Expression-ism" (Master's thesis. ColumbiaUniversity, 1965).26.

IS. Ibid.t9. 1 am grateful to Irving Sandlerfor sharing with me hard-to-obtain primary source materialrelating to Newman's activities asa curator of primitive art.arr. Barnett Newman, introduc-don to Pre-Coltwtbiwt Stony Scalp.an, exh. cat. (New York:Wakefield Gallery, x944).at. Ibid.22. Ibid.23.Ibid24. Bultman, interview withauthor.23. Ashton, New York School, 132.26. Barnett Newm an, introduc-tion to Northwest Coast IndianPrinting, exh. cat. (New York:Betty Parsons Gallery, 1946).27. Ibid.a8. Ibid.29. Ibid.30. Barnett Newman. introduc-tion to The Ideographic Picture,eels. cat. (New York: Betty Pa-sorts Gallery, 1947).31. Ibid.32. Richard Pauscrte-Dart stillfees due "there was a great dif-ference between his work and hiscontemporaries" (RichardPomette-Dan, telephone conver-sation with author, 16 March598$).33. Ibid.

34. Rsmetre-Dart, interview withauthor, Suffers, New York. 5May 1985.3S. Gail Levin, "RichardPo ssette-Dart's Emergence as anAbstract Expressionist." Arts 54(March 1980): ta5-26: confirmedby Potuttse-Dan, telephone con-versataswitt author.

36 Quoted in Levin, "Pousette-Darts Emergence," 526. Levinwriter that Pousette-Dart "diagrammed the polarity betweenelse 'subconscious mind' and the

37. Pouaea-Dart, telephone con-variation with author.31. Ibid.39. Ibid.40. Ibid.45. Ibid.43. Ibid.

43. Sae Adolph Gottlieb, inter-view with Dorothy Seckier. 1967,quoted in Mary DavisMacNaughton, "Adolph Goes-lieb: His Life and Art," AdolphGottieb. A Renospeawe, ads. cat.(New York: Arts Publisher inassociation with the Adolph andEseher Gottieb Fou dation,1981), 31.44• It must also be rememberedthat Cottbeb studied withJohnSloan at the Art Students Leaguein 1920. For comments on Sloan'sappreciation and patronage ofIndian an (especially his involve-mate with the Exposition of IndianTribal Arts in New York in 1931),see Rushing, "Early New York

.School," 3-4, 1o10.4.45. On John D. Graham's gift toGottlieb. see MacNaugbton,"Gottlkb " an. Sanford Hirsch.telephone conversation withauthor, 3 April 198$. Specialthanks am due Hirsch for hiscooperation with my research.46 MacNaughmq "Gottlieb "30.47. Quoted in Sanfotd Hirsch,"Adolph Gottlieb in Arizona:1937-38" (unpublished manu-script, 1994).13-48. Hitch. interview with author.49. This replica of Utah pic-tographs was made for the exhibi-tor by Works Progress Adtnini-atration (WPA) artists. Thecatalogue illustration was a photo-graph taken by Robert M. Jones,Utah Art Project, WPA; we Fred-erick H. Douglas and Rentd'Harnoocourt, India, Art of theUnited Stan, exh. cat. (NewYork: Museum of Modern An,1941),24-so. Quad in MacNaughton,"Gottlieb " 575.55. Quoted in "The ides ofArtThe Attitudes of Ten Artists onTheir An and Contempor meous-ness," Tiger's Eye a (December5943): 43.Sa. Put modern influences onGottlieb's grid, see MacNaugh-son, "Gottlieb " 32.53. Ibid., 38. MacNaughtosn notesthese the imluma of Chi)katblanket patterns and Hatch totempole forms on Gottieb's early Pic-tographs. As she rightly observes,Maids poles were on display atboth the Brooklyn Museum andin the exhibition Indian Art of citeVisited Stre. Hirsch also reports

(interview with author) that"totems were prominently dis-played at the BrooklynMuseum."S4. Varnedoe, "Abstract Expres-similsm," 632.SS. See, for example, the Haidacarved pole exhibited at theMuseum of Modern An in 5945and illustrated in the catalogue(Douglas and d'Harnoncourt,htdiar Art, 176).56. According to Hitch (inter-view with author), the earliestUnstili Lifer were Pictographsadapted or repainted "in order toisolate some massive, centralform."S7. Quoted in Douglas andd'Harssoneoun, Indian Art, 176.58. Although not reproduced inthe catalogue, this Tsonoquamask was reproduced in Art News(39 (s February 19411: 6, frontis-piece) in conjunction with areview of the exhibition.59. Such Gotdkb titles includeThe AlkahestofParareluts, 1945:Oracle, 5947. Sorcerers, 1947, andAltar, 5947.60. Quoted in "Ides of Art," 43.For a disc ssion of Gottlieb inrotation to Jung s The Idea ofRedemption in Alchemy, weMacNaughmn. "Gottieb61. See Francis V. O'Connor,Jackson Pollock (New York:Museum ofModern An, 1967),13; Elizabeth Langhorne, "A

Jungian Interpretation ofJacksonPollock's Art through 1946"(Ph.D. this., University of Penn-sylvania, 1977). sore.62. Quoted in Francis V. O'Con-nor. "The Genesis ofJackson PoI-lock: 5953-5943" (Ph.D. disc.,Johns Hopkins University. 1963),7.63. Bulrman, interview withauthor:64. Francis V. O'Connor andEugene V. Thaw, Jaduon Pollock:Catalogue Rabmsd (New Haven:Yale University Press, 5978),4:192.6$. Bolman (interview withauthor) confirmed that Pollockread DYN.

66. For a complete burns of thecontents of Pollock's library at thetime of his death. see O'Connorand Thaw, Caalogur Raismtl,4:587-99.67. Bultman, interview withauthor68. Ibid.69. In addition to the earlyAbstract Expressionists, therewere a number of young Ameri-can painters in New York in thel ate 19401 (some of whom wereassociated with Kenneth Beau-doin's journal Ironogroph andexhibited at his Galcrie Neuf inthe spring of 1946), including WillBarnet, Peter Buss, RobertBarrell, Gertrude Barrer. SoniaSekula, and Oscar Collier. whoexperimented with forms inspiredby Northwest Coast and PuebloIndian an. See Ann Gibson,"Painting outside the Paradigm:Indian Space,-Arts 57 (February5983): 98-103.70. Bultman, interview withauthor.75. Ibid. Among the newspaperclippings Pollock saved war onefrom the Sunday New York Timor,19 January 5941. On this pagewere "ten photographs of Indianmasks to be shown at theMuseum of Modern Art startingJanuar 22 in an exhibit of Ameri-an Indian Art" (O'Connor andThaw, Cawlogue Raimtf, 4:199).72. Ibid.73. See Donald E. Gordon. "Pol-lock's Bird, or How Jung Did NotOffer Much Help in Myth-Mak-ing." An in America 68 (October1990):48, 53 n. So.74. Dr. Violet Staub de Laszloquoted in Langhorne, "A JungianInterpretation." µo n. 139.75. Buletnan, interview withauthor

76. O'Connoc Jacks" Pollock, 21.

See also Irving Sandler 'John D.

Graham: The Pauper asEsthetician and Connoisseur„Arrf um 7 (October 1968): 32.

Some sources place Pollock and

Graham's first meeting as late as1941. For information that may

support the later date, see Gor-

don, *'Pollock's Bird," $a.

77. O'Connor and Thaw. Cae-

lapeRsvomtf, 4:897. Willem de

Kooning recalled Pollock's unus-

ual insistence that a borrowed

Graham article be returned to

him; we Ashton, Near York

school, 68. Pollock's biographer

B. H. Friedman noted that Pol-

locc admired "Primitive Art andPicasso" sufficiently to write Gra-

ham a letter; B. H. Friedman,

Jackson Pollock: Energy Made Viai-

ble (New York: McGraw-Hill,

8972), 5o•.78. Bultman, interview with

amhoc

79. Ibid.

b. Graham. System and Dialectics,1oa-3.

8t. Thus remark was part of &daft for Jackson Pollock, "MyPainting," Poasikilitin 1 (Winter

1947-48):78. .

82. Batman. interview withanthot

83. Jackson Pollock. "JacksonPollock."Arts ad Anchitectnrr 61

(February 1944):14-

4 See Cad Gusev Jung, TheIsegnmiote ofthe Pnronality (NewYork: Farrar & Rhinehart, 1939),33.

85. Ibid., 91.

86. For a disamsion of the pos-aibiliry that Pollock saw pic-tographs on his camping trips inthe Mojave Desert in 1934, weRmbing. "Early New YorkSeboo&" 43

$7. S-3. V. Powell, "On Limita-mom so Use of Some Anthropo-iogial Dace," Barnet ofAmericanFrhaalogyRepon t (1881):371-7$,378 [Lnafer BAE Report). Like-wane Ihere were literally huedredsof Native American pictographsReproduced in "Pimme Writing ofthe American Indians," BAE Re-pan 10 ( 88

93): see especially pp.31339 and pl. 34.

88. Graham, Systew ad Dialectics,

23.

8q. Powell, "On Limitations,"

73.

go. Bultman, interview withauthor.

91. See Robert Motherwell'scomments quoted in WilliamRubin, "Notes on Masson andPolock,"Arts 34 (November

8959): 36.

92. Douglas and d'Harno ncourt,Indian Art, 97-98.

93. Ibid., *4.

94 Quoted in Polcari, "Roots,"126.

95. In addition to the informationon Kokopelli in the exhibitioncatalogue Indian Art ofthe United

Stores and in BAE Report 17, threearticles on the erotic flute playerappeared in the American Anthno-pologin in the late i93os; see Rush-ing, "Early New York.' chool,"

48-50.

96. Douglas and d'Harnoncourt.Indian Art, 86.

97. Peggy Guggenheim, Out of

This Century (New York: Uni-verse Books, 1946), 263.

98. Ibid. According to O'Comor,"Lee Kraner recalls that he [Pol-lock) would sit in frost of the

blank canvas for hours. Sometimein December of 1943 ... be sud-denly locked himself in his studioand finished the painting in oneday" ( O'Comor and Thaw, Cast-lope Ra6amd, 1:94).

99. Set Frank O'Hara,Jackso Pol-

lock ( New York Braz llet 1939),20.

too. Douglas and d'Harnmcoutt,Indian Art, 846.

sot. Shown in the exhibitionIndian Art ofthe United State, andillustrated ibid., 1o4.

tot. In discussing this paintingthe term pictunw~irhin.e pirdan isused in William Rubin, "Pollockas Jungian Illustrator: The Limitsof Psychological Criticism," Anin America 67 (December 1979):88.

103. Matilda Coxe Stevenson,"The Sin," RAE Report I I (1894):pus. xiv, xv.

loo. Ibid., 73.

toy. Sandler noted that three Pol-lucc paintings produced between1938 and 1941- Mosgued Image,He", and Birth - incorporateEskimo mask forms; sec Smallersrejoinder to Rubin, in WilliamRubin, "Mom on Rubin on Pol-loc k," Art in America, 68 (October1980): 37.

lo6. Graham, "Primitive Art, -

237.

,o7. See W. H. Dall. "On MasksLehrer&, and Certain AboriginalCustoms, with an Inquiry into theBearing of Their GeographicalDistribution," BAE Report 3(1884), p1. xxvn, fig. 70.

,o8. See Douglas andd'Harnoncourt, Indian Art, 29.

jog. Lee Krasner, interview withB. H. Friedman, quoted inJacksonPollock: Black and White, a ch. cat.(New York: Marlborough Gal-lery, 1969), 10.

11o. Jackson Pollock, interviewwith William Wright, 1931,quoted in O'Connor. Jackson Fbi-

lock, 8t.

i u. Quoted ibid., 39.

112. Jesse Walter Fewkes,

"Tusayan Snake Ceremonies,"BAE Report 16 (1897): pus. txm,morn.

113. Pollock, "My Painting," 78.

114. Robert F. Spencer et al., TheNative Americans (New York:Harper 8c Row, 1977), 308-9. Seealso Clyde Kluekhohn and D. C.Leighton, "An Introduction to

Navajo Chant Practice, "in Ameri-

can Anthropological AssociationMemoir 52 (1946).

18 S. Pollock, "My Painting," 76.

1,6. Franc J. Newcomb andGladys A. Reichard, Sandpointingsofthe Navajo Shooting Chant (NewYork: Dover 1937), 1a, 20, 24.

117. Pollock, "Jackson Pollock."

14.

118. Graham, "Primitive Art."

237.

r59. Bulman, interview with

author

130. Bukman nfoemed me of

Pollock's interest in the relation-

ship between magic, shamanism,

and "tae nantrc of self "

Buliman's statement about thedream vision as a source of imag-

ery for Pollock is quoted inlaughoene's rejoinder so Robin.

"More on Rubies" 63

tat. Garrick Mallory. "Sign Lan-guage among the North Ameri-

can Indians," RAE Report I

(188,): 370.

122. Buhman, interview withauthor

123. Quoted in O'Camor, Jackson

Pollock, 36.

124. Buleman, interview withauthor

12$. Quoted in Bruce Gluey "AnInterview with Lee Krasner" Arts4s (April 8967): 38.

tab. Gottlieb, "Ides of Art," ,o;Pousene-Dart, telephone conver-sation with author

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