13.7: Jasper Johns

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One night I dreamed I painted a large American flag, and the next morning I got up and I went out and bought the materials to begin it. And I did. I worked on that painting a long time. It’s a very rotten painting—physically rotten—because I began it in house enamel paint, which you paint furniture with, and it wouldn’t dry quickly enough. Then I had in my head this idea of something I had read or heard about: wax encaustic.

—Jasper Johns

Salman Khan and Steven Zucker provide a description, historical perspective, and analysis of Jasper Johns’s Flag.

The link to this video is provided at the bottom of this page.

Jasper Johns, Flag, 1954–55 (dated on reverse 1954), encaustic, oil, and collage on fabric mounted on plywood, three panels, 42-1/4 x 60-5/8 inches (107.3 x 153.8 cm), (The Museum of Modern Art).

Contributors

Jasper Johns, Flag. Authored by: Salman Khan and Steven Zucker. Provided by: Khan Academy. Located at: www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/abstract-exp-nyschool/ny-school/v/jasper-johns-flag. License: CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike