From all the research and watching the movie "Pollock" I have to say that the movie provided a great portrayal of Jackson Pollock's life. The environment shaped the painter looking at his life. His upbringing certainly had a great influence on the artist and was anything but ordinary. Born on the frontier and raised on the run throughout the West, Pollock and his family eventually settled in California, but between birth and adolescence, Pollock's experiences served as a catalyst in distorting his psyche and creating his works of art. Jackson Pollock was deeply influenced by his childhood and various other forces that helped transform this man into one of the most controversial painters of all time. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The relationship Pollock had with his mother was a major factor in the person and painter he would become. The influence of his mother, Stella Pollock, on him would inevitably become too much for him to bear. It would torment him throughout his life, creating in him a feeling of restlessness, betrayal and isolation. She would become the hidden force behind many of his paintings. Jackson Pollock was never able to deal with a woman in a normal way for the rest of his life. Another major influence in his life was alcohol. Pollock was plagued by alcoholism throughout his adult life and with his childhood upbringing, along with his mother's influence, Pollock had to constantly fight to maintain his sanity. Even numerous years of therapy have failed to calm the inner torment. Paul Jackson Pollock was born on the plains of the small western town of Cody, Wyoming, in 1912. He was the youngest of five brothers. His father was a farmer and his mother had problems with the taste of champagne on the beer budget. His mother's antics led the family to move several times from Wyoming to Arizona to California. His family background, consisting of a mostly absent father and an overbearing mother, can be partly blamed for the man he has become. The resentment instilled by this environment haunted Pollock throughout his life. From his birth until his death in an alcohol-induced car accident in 1956, the man often known simply as Jack went through many transformations in his life, probably as many changes as there are Pollock paintings. Pollock's formal study of art began in late 1929 or early 1930. It was then that he moved from the family home in California to New York to study art with Regionalism painter Thomas Hart Benton. Here Pollock first discovered that he really had no talent for drawing, but under Benton's study he began to develop his skill and interest in painting (Pioch 1997). During the early years of his career Pollock worked in the manner of regionalism with influences from the Mexican mural painters Orozco, Rivera and Siqueiros. Many aspects of realism also had an influence. But throughout his life and artistic career, Jackson Pollock made sure that the influences his upbringing and family life had on his paintings were shown in his art. Whether you look at a 1930s painting like “TP's Boat in Menemsha Pond” or the 1940s artwork “The She-Wolf,” it's clear that Pollock was reacting to the anger he felt inside. Among the many artists credited with having influenced Pollock's painting in some way was the eccentric nineteenth-century artist Albert Pinkham.