Tuesday 5 July 2011

Jasper Johns 'Green Target' 1955



SUBJECT MATTER

The subject of this painting is a target motif concealed in green paint which covers the whole painting. The target is barely visible and can only be seen when the viewer looks closer. The painting is made from a beige newspaper collage and each circle of the target is laid on top of one another. Initially I get a sense of confusion as all you can see is a green square. But once investigated further there is surprise at the other contents of the painting. This is followed by curiosity, wandering what the target is doing there, why is it concealed so, why newspaper?

TECHNIQUE

The artwork has been created in levels, first by creating a newspaper collage on the canvas and each circle. They are then placed on each other in the right order and painted on together. This allows the marks made by the paint to continue of each level, making it appear to be on flat surface. The marks made by the paint are very blotchy and appear to have been done in a sort of stippling technique but on a much larger and care-free scale. The colours are slightly blended in and give an even messier appearence. The blotting technique makes some parts of the paint appear thicker than others and some are patchy and do not cover the newspaper underneath. The paint gives the illusion that it is on one level until you go up close and see the target which is layered.
The colours used in the painting are all very restricted to greens, showing only use of light, medium or dark green. This range of green tones has not been layed out to create tone, they have been mixed up to creat an almost camouflage effect. Green is a very neutral colour and its emotion can only really be distinguished by what tone of green it is. As this painting uses a variety of green tones its hard to say which emotion it conveys. The texture of the painting is obviously not flat due to the layering of each circle of the target. But this is not the only element of the texture of this painting. The newspaper that has been painted on is very thin so it wrinkles when alot of paint has been applied to it. You can see this effect on various parts of the painting. There is also a cracked effect from the end of each circle. The painting is very symmetrical and the composition has been planned out very carefully.

ARTIST’S CAREER

Jasper Jones was born in Augusta, Georgia, in 1930 and grew up in South Carolina. At the age of 22 Johns moved to New York to pursue his childhood dream of becoming an artist. In New York, Johns met numerous artists including Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage and Merce Cunningham .The year 1958 marked Johns' breakthrough as an artist. He had his first solo exhibition at the newly opened Leo Castelli Gallery in New York. His work was shown at the Venice Biennale, the 'Museum of Modern Art' bought three of his works and the art scene talked about his ouvre. After this, Johns partially began to move away from his style of painting. In the early 1960s he took an interest to printmaking. During the 1980s Johns' style of painting changed again. Johns would look back to teh motifs used in his early works and apply them in his printimaking and new works.Today, Johns lives and works in New York.

LINKS WITH OWN WORK

What first appealed to me about this artist was his use of the target motif in so many different ways. I also admired the way he does not limit himself to just paint and canvas, but uses a wide range of media that he wants e.g. plaster casts on a painting. I also admire the various textures that Johns uses in his work. I think that looking at Johns work will tell me not to limit myself when thinking about Contrasting Surface Qualities, and will enable me to think bigger.

QUOTATIONS

“Everyone is of course free to interpret the work in his own way. I think seeing a picture is one thing and interpreting it is another.”

No comments:

Post a Comment