Scientists have successfully solved a decades-old mystery surrounding the vivid blue pigment in Jackson Pollock's renowned painting "Number 1A, 1948." Using advanced laser technology and chemical analysis, researchers from the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and Stanford University have definitively identified the synthetic pigment that creates the electric blue color at the heart of this massive nine-foot canvas.

The research team employed Raman spectroscopy, a sophisticated technique that uses lasers to make molecules vibrate and produce unique chemical fingerprints. By scraping tiny samples of the blue paint and firing lasers at them, scientists determined that Pollock had used manganese blue, a synthetic pigment first developed in 1907 and commercially available starting in the 1930s. This pigment is renowned for its distinctive clear blue hue, which results from its unique ability to absorb both green and violet wavelengths of light, leaving behind a radiant turquoise color unlike anything found in nature.

"It's really interesting to understand where some striking color comes from on a molecular level," said study co-author Edward Solomon of Stanford University during an interview with the Associated Press. The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, represent the first confirmed proof of Pollock's use of this particular pigment in his work.

While Pollock was not aware of the underlying excited-state exchange interactions that produce manganese blue's unique hue, the researchers noted that he nonetheless intuitively chose this color to create the dynamic contrast and depth that characterizes "Number 1A." For artists of Pollock's era, manganese blue was once a staple pigment, and it was also used as a trendy additive in pool cement by builders. However, by the 1990s, the pigment disappeared from the market due to environmental concerns.

The scientific investigation revealed fascinating parallels between the researchers' methods and Pollock's artistic process. "I actually see a lot of similarities between the way that we worked and the way that Jackson Pollock worked on the painting," said MoMA conservation scientist Abed Haddad, a co-author of the study. Pollock painted in layers, often pouring paint directly from cans instead of mixing colors on a palette, which left behind raw material for scientists to sample decades later.

This breakthrough in understanding the painting's composition has significant implications for art conservation. Conservators now know exactly what pigment sits on the surface of "Number 1A," and this knowledge helps them understand how the artwork might age under various conditions including light exposure, heat, and humidity changes. "This knowledge can be critical for developing effective strategies for display," Haddad explained to Artnet.

Jackson Pollock's "Number 1A, 1948" is often described as a thunderstorm of paint, with white fog hovering between black skeins and pink and red sparks bursting through the composition. The artist's approach to his work was both physical and methodical – he would bend over his canvas, circle it, stalk it, and fling paint until the surface became a map of his own choreography. The painting's title itself is deliberately misleading, as Pollock didn't assign numbers in neat chronological order, adding letters and revising names to keep interpretations open and ambiguous.

By refusing to give narrative titles to his works, Pollock denied viewers easy interpretations. As art historian Steven Zucker observed, "Pollock wanted to leave the field open in a sense, so that there is room for interpretation." When examined closely, the painting reveals technical details that demonstrate Pollock's mastery, including a thin bead of white arcing across the canvas in one continuous gesture from a punctured paint tube, and black handprints in the upper right corner that evoke paleolithic cave paintings.

Contrary to common perception, Pollock's abstract paintings were not random or chaotic. The artist himself dismissed the idea that his work was accidental, insisting instead that each drip and swirl was a deliberate move. Close examination reveals this control in the viscosity of the paint, the way skeins overlap without blending, and the precision of drips that stop just short of pooling. Pollock understood paint with the expertise of a physicist understanding fluids, knowing exactly how it would spatter, how gravity would pull it, and how thickness would affect its trail.

This tension between apparent disorder and hidden mastery revolutionized the art world in 1948. Pollock's contemporaries credited him with breaking new ground, inventing not just a new style but an entire new category known as action painting. In this approach, the real art happened in the act itself – in the risk of pouring, flinging, and moving in synchronization with the canvas on the floor. As Zucker noted, "He was a real master of paint that was being dripped, that was being splattered, that was being flung." This scientific discovery adds another layer of appreciation to Pollock's technical brilliance and artistic vision.