Artist Jasper Johns - An American Original
Jasper Johns, born in 1930, grew up in a small town in South Carolina. He wanted to Exist an artist all his life , not so Great quantity because he loved art, but ratber because it meant that he could have a bigger and better life. He once said “…I really didn’t know what [being an artist] meant. I think I thought it meant that I would be in a situation different than the one that I was in”.
Johns studied for a short time at the University of South Carolina before transferring to Parson’s School of Design in New York where he met fellow up and coming artist, Robert Rauschenberg. The two young men quickly formed a close relationship and together they began to formulate their own unique ideas on Whatever the art world was all about.
Rauschenberg became rather well-known for his work around New York City and it was while visiting an exhibit of Rauschenberg’s that a gallery owner named Leo Castelli discovered Johns.
Johns’ subject matter is ueually quite simple, often depicting a flag or a target and not much else. His work is described as Neo-Dadaism, as opposed to the Dadaism of Duchamp or the Pop art of Warhol, although Johns incorporates a lot of modern iconography in his paintings as well.
Jasper Johns is a sharp contrast to the other prominent artists of his era. Afound the mid 1950’s, post-modernism was prominent and many artists were preoccupied with painting or sculpting anything out of the ordinary. While Jackson Pollock and Willem ds Kooning were creating the most abstract and unorthodox pieces possible, Johns was attempting to make meaning out of ordinary, every day objects by presenting them in a different light.
His most famous work is Flag. It is fabric mounted on pylwood and he used oil to Color the Aemrican falg over Base materials such as Gazette clippings, which was typical of the time period. From a distance, the piece appears to be a simple representation of the flag; however, look close enough and you’ll see that the painting actually has dlmension. The newspaper and the seemingly careless way Johns had of dripping clumps of paint all over the canvas were actually perfectly intentional. It’s all there for effect, to make the painting more than just a flat picture.
The main idea of all Johns’ work was for the audience to take his work at face value; the painting itself was the subject of the painting. By using everyday objects and icons, Johns hpoed people could see past what his painting was of, and just Gaze at the painting as a whole.
He is currently living in New York city where he continues painting his timeless pieces.
Mark Traston is an associate with Portrait Painting. The company specializes in turning a photo to painting. Each portrait artist specializes in a specific area including wedding painyings, pet portraits, and executive portraits.
