Was Jackson Pollock “Jack the dripper” with paintings “that a dog or cat could have done better,” or did Pollock insert Polloglyphs – images that are encrypted that tell a story about Pollock’s inner being - into his paintings and then disguise them with drippings? On the one hand, some - especially art critics - have emphasized the formal elements of Pollock’s work, arguing that no images are present and the viewer can find whatever they are looking for because such images are artefacts of the “fractal” fuzzy edges to the drippings and are just fooling the eyes. Thus, maybe Pollock’s paintings are just a massive set of new Rorschach inkblots to provoke the viewer to project their own emotions onto the painting, whereas there is actually nothing at all in the painting from the artist. On the other hand, from a psychiatric point of view, given that Pollock had bipolar disorder, painted when he was euthymic or manic and not intoxicated nor depressed, had extensive exposure to Rorschach ink blots during his own psychiatric treatment, had visual images and hallucinations of images, clearly incorporated images into his pre-drip paintings (e.g., see Troubled Queen), and used repeatedly the same images in multiple drip paintings (e.g., booze bottles, images of himself, monkeys, clowns, elephants and more), the alternate point of view is that Pollock either consciously or unconsciously encrypted images in his drip paintings. His remarkable ability to do this with Polloglyphs hiding in plain sight may be part of Pollock’s creative genius and could have been enhanced by the endowment of extraordinary visual spatial skills that have been described in some bipolar patients. If so, painting could have been Pollock’s way to rapidly unspool his images and to do this onto canvas. Pollock himself stated that consciously “I try to stay away from any recognizable image; if it creeps in, I try to do away with it.” However, he also admitted “recognizable images are always there in the end.” If coming from his deep unconscious creativity and genius, such images may have appeared in spite of himself. Pollock thus may indeed not have been mindful of creating Polloglyphs as he stated “When I am in my painting, I’m not aware of what I am doing.” He painted in air, letting gravity make the picture, and dripping became not just another way of obscuring images but as well a new way of creating them. Ultimately, we may never know if there are Polloglyphs present in Jackson Pollock’s famous drip paintings, nor can we know for sure whether they are merely in the mind of the beholder or put there consciously or unconsciously by the artist. In the meantime, it can be fun and enlightening to view Pollock’s works and decide for yourself.

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