Page 25 - Studio International - December 1972

terms with the aggression of his earlier male/ creative experience generally'.15 This is progress of his artistic life it may mean that
female confrontations through Jung's theory partially true, in that the theme of the picture is Pollock felt that having come to grips with his
which recognizes the elements of the self in a direct reference to Pollock's experience of unconscious it was beginning to generate a new
others. This theory is one of Jung's basic ideas creativity, but it is a specific reference, not a phase in his art.
about the contents of the unconscious, which vague evocation. The clue to the subject is Because of its stylistic links with the 1942
was for Pollock 'the source of art', and as Male actually quoted by Lawrence Alloway but not Moon Woman it is probable that The Moon
and Female demonstrates for the first time in his followed up. He notes that Sir Herbert Read Woman Cuts the Circle was painted at the
art the fertility rather than the destructiveness of informed him that in Jung's 'Symbols of beginning of 1943, and, for reasons which will be
sexual confrontation, it may stand as a Transformation' there is reproduced a tattoo examined below, before April 1943. The
metaphor for Pollock's greater confidence as an pattern of the 'Woman in the Moon' from the painting which follows it in the 'mythological'
artist. This suggestion is supported by the fact North American Indian tribe the Haida, and series is She-Wolf, dated 8.43, and although this
that, with Stenographic Figure, Male and Female that on the same page there is a reference to a date is probably not absolutely correct, it is
may be one of his earliest attempts to use Hottentot legend about cutting off a sizeable likely that the picture was painted in the
automatism in a full-scale painting. The portion of the moon.16 However, that edition summer of 1943, so there is quite a long gap
technique of automatism, designed to was not available to Pollock in 1943, and the between the two works. The reason for this may
minimize conscious control over the images illustration was not included in the book until be because Pollock became involved in another
produced by the mind, was known by Pollock Jung's major revision of it, in German, in 1952. commitment, for at this time he was invited by
when he first visited his Jungian analyst in The American editions of 1916 and 1921 called Peggy Guggenheim to submit work to an
1939,12 but it is a difficult technique to apply to 'The Psychology of the Unconscious' had very exhibition of collages which she was holding
such a complex activity as painting. Male and few illustrations. And further, it is not the at the 'Art of This Century' from the middle of
Female which followed Stenographic Figure is unlikely Hottentot legend with which Jung is April to the middle of May 1943. O'Connor
more controlled and the technical lessons learned primarily concerned in the passage noted by writes that Pollock and Motherwell (who was
are repeated with greater fluency without losing Sir Herbert Read, but the much more relevant also invited to exhibit) got to work in Pollock's
the spontaneity which is the essence of myth of Hiawatha. Given Pollock's self- studio making collages for this exhibition,18
automatism. If we accept the subject as being a confessed interest in the American Indian and presumably before or at the very beginning of
metaphor for the creative forces of the the clearly Indian features and headdress of the April. This experience affected Pollock's style
unconscious it may have been prompted by figure in The Moon Woman Cuts the Circle it is to such an extent that The Moon Woman Cuts
Pollock's first attempt to harness them. likely that the source for the Moon Woman the Circle can be confidently assigned to a date
There are two other works which might be series lies in Jung's treatment of the Hiawatha prior to it.
thematically linked with Male and Female. One, legend. The actual collage that was exhibited is not
Search for a Symbol dated 8.43 was in the Jung writes : 'We are told that as a girl his known,19 but we know of no other period in
November 1943 show, the other, Two, is grandmother lived in the moon. One day when which Pollock made collages so it may be
usually dated 1945 but Peggy Guggenheim she was swinging on a grapevine, a jealous lover possible to date all his collages, tentatively, to
remembers it being painted in 1943.13 The cut it down, and Nokomis, Hiawatha's the period around Easter 1943. There is a dated
problem of dating Search for a Symbol is grandmother, fell to earth. . . . according to work from just after this period which shows a
discussed below; the problem of Two is that it ancient belief the moon is the gathering place of change of style so marked that it is difficult not
was not exhibited until March 1945 at 'The Art departed souls, a guardian of the seed, and to conclude that he had been greatly stimulated
of This Century'. This needs some explanation hence a source of life with feminine by a new technique and by working with
because every other picture of 1943 was either significance'.'? The Hero's mother was another powerful and committed artist. This
exhibited at the November show, or like conceived somehow as a result of the fall of painting, a gouache, is dated May 1943 and it
Pasiphaë, at the earliest opportunity. On the Nokomis. After the symbolic union depicted in appears to be an entirely abstract rather gay
other hand it is stylistically nearer to the early Male and Female, the Moon Woman series work. Some of the paint is applied direct from
1943 works than those of 1945, particularly in seems to be concerned with generation and the tube and although some of his collages are
the use of a loose calligraphic scrawl like that in birth, and if this itself is a metaphor for the overpainted with gouache in the same way they
Moon Woman of 1942.
After Male and Female Pollock painted two,
possibly three, pictures on the theme of the
Moon Woman. The first is called simply Moon
Woman and is dated 1942, the other which
survives is called The Moon Woman Cuts the
Circle and is usually dated 1943, and there is an
untraced work called The Mad Moon
Woman." The two surviving pictures are very
close in style and as they clearly share the same
iconography they will be considered together.
The title of The Moon Woman Cuts the Circle
is so specific that it demands more serious
consideration than it usually receives. Lawrence
Alloway in his catalogue entries for the London
Marlborough show of 1961 notes that the title is
'exceptional' but goes on to conclude that
Pollock's 'titles can serve only to evoke the kind
of experience that Pollock associated with the

Guardians of the Secret 1943
Oil on canvas, 48 3/4 x 75 in.
San Francisco Museum of Art
219