
Jasper Johns, American Legend - pseudolus
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/18/t-magazine/jasper-johns.html
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prickledpear
Can anyone help me appreciate non representational art like that of Mr. Johns?

One specific question I have is: do his individual works stand alone or do you
have to understand his life and/or complete body of work and the context in
which it was created to appreciate it?

If you saw one or two of his paintings without ever having heard of Jasper
Johns would you recognize them as masterpieces?

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CamperBob2
One impression that I got from the article, which I thought was helpful, is
that Johns's work serves as a transition or bridge between the Abstract
Expressionists like de Kooning and Rothko and the more modern figures like
Andy Warhol.

The Wikipedia article on abstract expressionism actually comes right out and
says as much. So I'd start there, if you want some contextual background.

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3chelon
Yes, he's often described as an early Pop artist, but unlike the more famous
Warhol & co., who used and embraced industrial processes, there's a definite
"craftsy", home-made quality to Johns' work.

He used encaustic, which is a mixture of hot wax and oil paint, which lends
the paintings a really unique texture. There's also often newsprint embedded
in the paint, which adds another layer of texture.

Reproducing the American flag in this medium, and at scale, offers all sorts
of questions. The red drips are maybe too symbolic, but the embedded newsprint
gives a sense of history, and the whole handmade effect just adds to the
ambiguity.

I once read some of his sketchbook notes, in which he'd written something
along the lines of "try to hide what's going on from the viewer." So, he was
being deliberately vague. And somehow it works, at least in his early works.

