Affective Guidance in the Creative Process: Ritual Anthropology as a Model -The Case of Jackson Pollock

Résumé 0

This article proposes to use ritual anthropology to model the creative process in modern Western art, illustrated by the longitudinal case study of the work of North American artist Jackson Pollock, his statements on his process, and historical documents. First, the article applies Alfred Gell's model, where artists are either "passive" spectators or "active" creators of artworks, and signals the need for a more detailed description of the transition between these states. Drawing from the dynamics of affects found in Jeanne Favret-Saada's ethnography of rural sorcery, the article develops the model further to resolve this shift. This new model emphasizes that for Pollock artworks are used as means to experience a specific affect, the pursuit of which guides his creative process, both for individual artworks and the development of his entire body of work. The conclusion examines alternative models from psychology, further emphasizing the centrality of affects in the creative process.