Color mystery solved in iconic Pollock painting

NEW YORK — Scientists have identified the origins of the blue color in one of Jackson Pollock's paintings with a little help from chemistry, confirming for the first time that the pioneering United States painter — widely regarded as a leading figure in the abstract expressionist movement — used a vibrant, synthetic pigment known as manganese blue.

Number 1A, 1948 showcases Pollock's classic style: paint has been dripped and splattered across the canvas, creating a vivid, multicolored work. Pollock even gave the piece a personal touch, adding his handprints near the top.

The painting, currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, is almost 2.7 meters wide. Scientists had previously characterized the reds and yellows splattered across the canvas, but the source of the rich turquoise blue proved elusive.

In a new study, researchers took scrapings of the blue paint and used lasers to scatter light and measure how the paint's molecules vibrated. That gave them a unique chemical fingerprint for the color, which they pinpointed as manganese blue.

The analysis, published on Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first confirmed evidence of Pollock using this specific blue.

"It's really interesting to understand where some striking color comes from on a molecular level," said study co-author Edward Solomon at Stanford University.

The pigment manganese blue was once used by artists, as well as to color the cement for swimming pools. It was phased out by the 1990s because of environmental concerns.

Previous research had suggested the turquoise from the painting could indeed be this color, but the new study confirms it using samples from the canvas, said Rutgers University's Gene Hall, who has studied Pollock's paintings and was not involved with the discovery.

"I'm pretty convinced that it could be manganese blue," Hall said.

Agencies Via Xinhua