Guardians of the Secret by Jackson Pollock

Pollock's surrealist inspirations helped produce this extraordinary painting

Guardians of The Secret, by a renowned artist of Abstract Expressionism and Surrealism, Jackson Pollock, is as much a mystery to viewers of the painting as it is to connoisseurs of the arts.

Pollock was a troubled man, he struggled with depression, he was a drunk who would get into fistfights but when sober he was a quiet man.

From Jungian mythology, which comes from the combined unconscious, he became an artist of Abstract Expressionism which showed a deep emotional need for him to express himself.

His Surrealism work was strange even a bit eerie at times. Crazy, perhaps bizarre, Jackson Pollock’s artwork have since been scrutinized by historians and they believe he may have had bipolar disorder.

Because Pollock didn’t want people looking at his paintings with a pre-conceived impression of what his paintings were about he started to number instead of name so that people would be encouraged to look properly into the painting.

As a child in America's west, Wyoming, he had watched Indian rituals and this seemed to play a role in his artistic development. He had been inspired spiritually as well as artistically and it is thought that he turned to drip painting as Indians do sand paintings in a customary healing procedure in an effort to right his ways.

Although Pollock was not known for cubism, ‘Guardians of The Secret’ has elements that suggest the symmetrical styling of that genre, combined with the imagery resembling that of prehistoric, African and Native American female and male figures that are barely recognisable due to the highly abstracted artwork, the painting has a sense of majesty.

The carefree qualities, striking symbolic occurrences, violent curlicues twirling brightly above the central rectangle give Guardians of The Secret its unique qualities.