    Photograph © 1999 Estate of Hans Namuth
A derisive reviewer who nicknamed Pollock "Jack the Dripper" had inadvertently grasped the crux of his pioneering contribution. To achieve the
complex and subtle structural interlace that characterizes his mature work, Pollock had indeed dripped, poured, and spattered his pigments across the vast expanse of raw canvas. The painting is
the result of both split-second decisionmaking and happenstance, choreography and chance. Each physical "performance" was a unique, spontaneous, and unrepeatable event, but the final product was
always subject to artistic will. I can control the flow of the paint," Pollock contended. "There is no accident."
  
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