In 1945 Pollock married Lee Krasner and the couple moved to a farmhouse in the rural, eastern end of Long Island. Walking the meadows and woods near Accabonac Creek, which stood at the back of their property, Pollock found a kinship with nature that defines his great, classic work.

Shimmering Substance glows with the brilliant light of midday sun on a thick meadow. Alive with arcs and orbs of heat-saturated colors, the painting is a testimony to the importance of the Long Island landscape as a motivating force of Pollock's work in the late 1940s.