Comparing and Contrasting the Lives and Works of Jackson Pollock and John Cage

Jackson Pollock was a painter. John Cage was a composer turned water color painter. Jackson Pollock wanted to include himself in his work and show his inner self. John Cage wanted to remove himself from his work and let nature control the outcome. However, One similarity that is not very obvious is what they were both working against. Neither one of them liked the path that the forefathers of their janera had pathed. They wanted to make their own style and forge their own path. At first appearance John Cage and Jackson Pollock are very different, but if you look more closely at their lives and how their work evolved you can see some similarities too.

Jackson Pollock’s work was abstract expressionism that was supposed to represent the subconscious mind and evoke emotion. Jackson Pollock and his movement with the New York painters was about self first and self discovery. His paintings were representations of himself and the things that were going on in his life. In the beginning of his career he painted the west, which reminded him of his home growing up. As his career continued he shifted his work as he was inspired by Jungian Psychoanalysis, and later he began his work with splatter paint (which is …show more content…
However, he was very different from classical composers. He thought that composers like beethoven created an object, but he wanted his work to create a feeling, to say something. He believed that to have no purpose was the greatest purpose in life. Between ‘46 and ‘47 he began studying Zen Buddhism and searched for “tranquility”. After he began his study of Buddhism, he spent a lot of time trying to take himself out of the music he composed. He did not want his work to be something that looked man made. As Cage began his first water colors he let chance decide what materials were used and where things were