Fractal Analysis: revisiting Pollock's drip paintings.

ABSTRACT

We investigate the contentions that Jackson Pollock's drip paintings are fractals produced by the artist's Lévy distributed motion and that fractal analysis may be used to authenticate works of uncertain provenance. We find that the paintings exhibit fractal characteristics over too small a range to be usefully considered as fractal; their limited fractal characteristics are easily generated without Lévy motion, both by freehand drawing and gaussian random motion. Several problems must therefore be addressed before fractal analysis can be used to authenticate paintings.