Encaustic, oil, and collage on fabric mounted on plywood (three panels)
42 1/4 x 60 5/8" (107.3 x 154 cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
This famous representation glows with a number energies, what helps its spirit is the simplicity of what is indeed a technical achievement. Encaustic* is a technique that uses heated wax and pigment, which provides some softness and glow. The paintings tonal balances allow the basic and the dry colours to chime.
Colour,and to a lesser degree, shape, is Johns tool in the work to take away the absolute and semiotic in the flag and unfortunately also, leaves it open for the given blood and glory, hand- me- down, jingoistic. This image may have been reckoned as Blasphemy.
Perhaps, as rivers of blood, symbolically flailing around among the long edges, splashed against the white like the blood behind an operating theatre curtain.The sight of blood will burn also most certainly, a retina- would that also be not specifically perceived as a glowingness? :}Is it also possible to collect a negative Aura? Not something dark but more like a Black Hole? The viewer could be a kind of distaste in the shrinking away from an image that may also be, least of all, politically challenging, spreading its unlikely and charismatic martyrdom. Musicians have performed under this banner. Pornographers....
The Korean War* had ended in '53 in a treaty still tenuously held between America and Russia from that following period to present.
The glow and presence found in FLAG 54-55, may have been reason behind Johns later Flag Paintings, in one example, the image of that flag is reproduced three times, emerging from the central image.
www.moma.com
*Source- Http://en.wikipedia.org
1 comment:
Edited 8:38 Thursday March 26
Post a Comment