His aggressive, sometimes violent personality combined with a new painting technique elevated artist Jackson Pollock to legendary status among American painters. His turbulent outbursts and his drip paintings earned him a reputation that would later become the stereotypical idea of the modern artist. Reconciling the unconscious with the creative act of painting was the impetus behind the paintings of abstract expressionist artist Pollock. His gestural works and technique of flinging and dripping paint over canvas had its inspiration in an exploration of the painting process and stemmed from his association with surrealist artists. Pollock once referenced the act of painting in itself as a source of magic. The art critic Harold Rosenberg picked up on this thought and termed the work "action painting." Pollock's action paintings became the cornerstone of the abstract expressionist art movement. This technique, an all-over approach that redefined pictorial space...