Four Forces at Once

Every falling drip is a tiny physics problem. Four things fight it out in the air and on the canvas:

• Gravity pulls the paint down
• Viscosity decides how easily it flows
• Surface tension pulls each blob into beads or threads
• Your speed stretches the line or lets it pool

Pollock never wrote an equation. He simply knew, in his hands, how high to hold the stick and how fast to move to get the splatter he wanted.

Here is the part that fools the eye: a Pollock is not one tangle of lines. He poured layer over layer, sometimes a dozen deep, letting earlier marks dry and show through later ones.

That is why the surface seems to have depth even though it is flat. You are looking down into a built-up history of drips, not at a single chaotic scribble. Strip away the layers and the spell breaks.