id: 149549 accession number: 1979.125 share license status: Copyrighted url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1979.125 updated: 2020-12-29 10:00:11.759000 15472: Flags, 1967-1968. Jasper Johns (American, b. 1930). Lithograph; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Harvey and Penelope D. Buchanan in honor of the sixtieth anniversary of The Print Club of Cleveland 1979.125 © Jasper Johns / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY title: Flags title in original language: series: 15472 series in original language: creation date: 1967-1968 creation date earliest: 1967 creation date latest: 1968 current location: creditline: Gift of Harvey and Penelope D. Buchanan in honor of the sixtieth anniversary of The Print Club of Cleveland copyright: © Jasper Johns / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY --- culture: America, 20th century technique: lithograph department: Prints collection: PR - Lithograph type: Print find spot: catalogue raisonne: Field ULAE 42 --- CREATORS * Jasper Johns (American, b. 1930) - artist --- measurements: state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Year in Review: 1979 opening date: 1980-02-20T05:00:00 Year in Review: 1979. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 20-March 9, 1980). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: Jasper Johns (American, born 1930) Flags, 1968 Lithograph, edition 23/43 Gift of Harvey and Penelope D. Buchanan in honor of the sixtieth anniversary of the Print Club of Cleveland 1979.125 Jasper Johns completed his first painting of the American flag in 1955, and since then he has used the image repeatedly to explore his interests in perception, language, and thought. A flag is a flat object, and by depicting it in two-dimensional media like painting, drawing, or, in this case, printmaking, Johns collapsed the normal gap that exists between the illusionistic representation of the three-dimensional world and the thing depicted. This print also emphasizes the viewer’s active role in looking by showing the flag in its complementary colors in the upper half and in a ghostly partial image below. Staring at the top image can produce an afterimage in the “correct” colors of red, white, and blue. But this optical game suggests the arbitrariness of language and symbols, which is an issue that permeates Johns’s body of work. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS --- IMAGES