Jasper Johns, Flag on Orange Field, 1957, encaustic on canvas, 167 x 124 cm,  Ludwig Donation 1976 Together with Robert Rauschenberg, Johns assumed a key position in the development of U.S. art in the 1950s and ’60s. Both succeeded in placing art in direct relationship to the everyday world. With his paintings, Johns themed the signs and objects people encounter in everyday life: numbers, alphabet letters, targets and the American flag. Once transposed into the artistic context, set pieces of reality lose their distinctive contours. This became manifestly clear with Johns’ much-debated flag paintings in which, from 1955 on, he worked round the motif of the American flag. The question they sparked was: is it a flag, or is it a painting? - to which the artist studiously avoided giving any reply. As becomes evident with Flag on Orange Field, although it is recognisably a national symbol, the significance of this flag has changed in favour of its striking aesthetic, which is achieved by the orange coloured ground and use of shimmering encaustic. [via]

Jasper Johns, Flag on Orange Field, 1957, encaustic on canvas, 167 x 124 cm,  Ludwig Donation 1976


Together with Robert Rauschenberg, Johns assumed a key position in the development of U.S. art in the 1950s and ’60s. Both succeeded in placing art in direct relationship to the everyday world. With his paintings, Johns themed the signs and objects people encounter in everyday life: numbers, alphabet letters, targets and the American flag. Once transposed into the artistic context, set pieces of reality lose their distinctive contours. This became manifestly clear with Johns’ much-debated flag paintings in which, from 1955 on, he worked round the motif of the American flag. The question they sparked was: is it a flag, or is it a painting? - to which the artist studiously avoided giving any reply. As becomes evident with Flag on Orange Field, although it is recognisably a national symbol, the significance of this flag has changed in favour of its striking aesthetic, which is achieved by the orange coloured ground and use of shimmering encaustic.

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