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Lot Essay
Flags I is a striking and superb example of Jasper Johns’s extraordinary use of this unique symbol, the American flag: at one and the same time an image so well known that one need only give it a quick glance to register and understand it, and an artwork that displays the unique hand of the artist, captivating our eye. It has become, according to the British art critic David Sylvester, one of the artist’s most important motifs. “The emblematic images from which Johns’s work is constructed are a group of family and friends to whom he is fiercely loyal. But even within this the flag seems special. He returns to it again and again as a musician returns to a favourite theme or set of chords, a poet to a particular metre.” (D. Sylvester, quoted by J. Johns and D. Sylvester (eds.), Jasper Johns Flags 1955-1994, London and New York, 1996, p. 6).
Flags I presents two American flags, placed side-by-side and organized vertically, the field of white stars against a blue background to the left, the white and red stripes tracing their bold lines the length of the paper support, from the upper to the lower edge. The work calls the viewers’ attention both to the flag as abstract design and to the unique marks Johns made in creating the image. Flags I is an outstanding example of Johns’s interest in revisiting his favorite themes, but through a wide range of different media. “The stinging colors of the silkscreen Flags I, printed from thirty-one screens, took full advantage of the skills of the (printmaking artisans that Johns engaged), Simca printers. In these heavily layered works, in which the inks were occasionally mixed with varnish…the immediate impression is of painting on paper…It is a painstaking bit of trickery, whereby Johns produces an intricately fashioned surface of brushstrokes, making them, and the two flags, equally the objects of attention” (R. Castleman, Jasper Johns A Print Retrospective, New York, 1986, p. 39). This technique has been central to Jasper Johns almost since the outset of his career, allowing the artist to innovate with a wide range of methods, to approach and return to imagery that so fascinated him, and affording him the opportunity to indulge his passion for seeing the physical forms that emerged from each different artistic medium that he chose to work with.
Intriguingly, the two flags in this work are not identical. Rather, they offer one subject open to numerous interpretations. They are the same “flag,” but Johns portrays them as unique and distinct objects, exhibiting variations in color, brightness, mark making, paint drips, and an intermingling of other colors (grey, black, green) among the primary red, white, and blue. "The painting of a flag is always about a flag,” Johns remarked, “but it is no more about a flag than it is about a brushstroke or about a color or about the physicality of the paint, I think" (J. Johns, quoted in D. Sylvester, Interviews with American Artists, London, 2002, p. 159). Engaging key questions about the relationship between art and its subject, between pictures and the objects they represent, Flags I links his art with the most powerful currents of earlier art movements of the 20th century, from Dadaism, to Surrealism, to Abstract Expressionism. In choosing to portray a common, everyday object, Johns explored—and blurred—the boundary between reality and representation. What fascinates the viewer and what makes these works so significant art historically is the question as to where these works stand in regard to the image and its object: are Johns’ flags abstractions or representations? Actual flags or artwork depictions?
Jasper Johns was drawn to the flag motif because it is both instantly recognizable and at the same time taken for granted. Because of its familiarity and ubiquity, the flag is both seen and not seen. Ever present, the United States flag occupies a position in American life perhaps like no other nation’s flag. Used by the military and at state funerals, but also integrated into American life in dozens of common, ordinary situations: highways, bridges, homes, gas stations, schools, offices, it is both symbol of an American way of life and also of American power and vigilance. Whether or not Johns wanted to make specific reference to politics in his flag imagery, the years just before he created Flags I were a volatile time for the American nation and for the flag as symbol. Much had happened in American political life between the time Johns painted his first flag in 1954 and 1973, the year Flags I was executed. During this era the flag as design motif was embraced both by counterculture hippies and conservatives both. By the early 1970s the flag had become a more complex symbol than ever, the Supreme Court even deciding on appropriate ways to talk about and display the flag. An exceptionally bold and striking motif, Johns has said that because the flag already exists as a design (“things the mind already knows,” “things seen but not looked at” as he phrased it) he didn’t have to design it. The basic design work thus out of the way, he could focus on the actual physical work of building the art pieces themselves.
Johns’s Flags are instantly recognizable images, unrivaled by all but a handful of the greatest art works of the modern period in their iconic singularity. At a time when abstraction was the dominant style, Johns’s decision to depict the flag was a radical move. The literalness of the image startled, amazed, and shocked viewers and helped lay the groundwork for Pop Art’s emphasis on the familiar, everyday object. Indeed, Johns’s work bridges Abstract Expressionism and later movements including Pop Art, Minimalism and Conceptual Art, and he has influenced an entire generation of artists working in those genres. As artworks, Johns flag images have something in common with much of the greatest art of the post war period. They seem reluctant to stay within the tidy boundaries of the medium in which they were created (the frames, the flat surfaces). Instead, they move into the physical world of the viewer, becoming part of our world, not separate from it. By the time Flags I was created Johns had been exploring the flag motif for ten years. It had become a central theme of his career and one of the best-known images in contemporary art.
Flags I presents two American flags, placed side-by-side and organized vertically, the field of white stars against a blue background to the left, the white and red stripes tracing their bold lines the length of the paper support, from the upper to the lower edge. The work calls the viewers’ attention both to the flag as abstract design and to the unique marks Johns made in creating the image. Flags I is an outstanding example of Johns’s interest in revisiting his favorite themes, but through a wide range of different media. “The stinging colors of the silkscreen Flags I, printed from thirty-one screens, took full advantage of the skills of the (printmaking artisans that Johns engaged), Simca printers. In these heavily layered works, in which the inks were occasionally mixed with varnish…the immediate impression is of painting on paper…It is a painstaking bit of trickery, whereby Johns produces an intricately fashioned surface of brushstrokes, making them, and the two flags, equally the objects of attention” (R. Castleman, Jasper Johns A Print Retrospective, New York, 1986, p. 39). This technique has been central to Jasper Johns almost since the outset of his career, allowing the artist to innovate with a wide range of methods, to approach and return to imagery that so fascinated him, and affording him the opportunity to indulge his passion for seeing the physical forms that emerged from each different artistic medium that he chose to work with.
Intriguingly, the two flags in this work are not identical. Rather, they offer one subject open to numerous interpretations. They are the same “flag,” but Johns portrays them as unique and distinct objects, exhibiting variations in color, brightness, mark making, paint drips, and an intermingling of other colors (grey, black, green) among the primary red, white, and blue. "The painting of a flag is always about a flag,” Johns remarked, “but it is no more about a flag than it is about a brushstroke or about a color or about the physicality of the paint, I think" (J. Johns, quoted in D. Sylvester, Interviews with American Artists, London, 2002, p. 159). Engaging key questions about the relationship between art and its subject, between pictures and the objects they represent, Flags I links his art with the most powerful currents of earlier art movements of the 20th century, from Dadaism, to Surrealism, to Abstract Expressionism. In choosing to portray a common, everyday object, Johns explored—and blurred—the boundary between reality and representation. What fascinates the viewer and what makes these works so significant art historically is the question as to where these works stand in regard to the image and its object: are Johns’ flags abstractions or representations? Actual flags or artwork depictions?
Jasper Johns was drawn to the flag motif because it is both instantly recognizable and at the same time taken for granted. Because of its familiarity and ubiquity, the flag is both seen and not seen. Ever present, the United States flag occupies a position in American life perhaps like no other nation’s flag. Used by the military and at state funerals, but also integrated into American life in dozens of common, ordinary situations: highways, bridges, homes, gas stations, schools, offices, it is both symbol of an American way of life and also of American power and vigilance. Whether or not Johns wanted to make specific reference to politics in his flag imagery, the years just before he created Flags I were a volatile time for the American nation and for the flag as symbol. Much had happened in American political life between the time Johns painted his first flag in 1954 and 1973, the year Flags I was executed. During this era the flag as design motif was embraced both by counterculture hippies and conservatives both. By the early 1970s the flag had become a more complex symbol than ever, the Supreme Court even deciding on appropriate ways to talk about and display the flag. An exceptionally bold and striking motif, Johns has said that because the flag already exists as a design (“things the mind already knows,” “things seen but not looked at” as he phrased it) he didn’t have to design it. The basic design work thus out of the way, he could focus on the actual physical work of building the art pieces themselves.
Johns’s Flags are instantly recognizable images, unrivaled by all but a handful of the greatest art works of the modern period in their iconic singularity. At a time when abstraction was the dominant style, Johns’s decision to depict the flag was a radical move. The literalness of the image startled, amazed, and shocked viewers and helped lay the groundwork for Pop Art’s emphasis on the familiar, everyday object. Indeed, Johns’s work bridges Abstract Expressionism and later movements including Pop Art, Minimalism and Conceptual Art, and he has influenced an entire generation of artists working in those genres. As artworks, Johns flag images have something in common with much of the greatest art of the post war period. They seem reluctant to stay within the tidy boundaries of the medium in which they were created (the frames, the flat surfaces). Instead, they move into the physical world of the viewer, becoming part of our world, not separate from it. By the time Flags I was created Johns had been exploring the flag motif for ten years. It had become a central theme of his career and one of the best-known images in contemporary art.