Guerra 1 - California State University, Sacramento
Guerra 1 - California State University, Sacramento
Guerra 1 - California State University, Sacramento
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2) Jasper Johns. Target with Plaster Casts, 1955.<br />
Encaustic and collage on canvas with objects. 129.5 x<br />
111.8 cm (51 x 44 in) Collection Mr. and Mrs. Leo<br />
Castelli.<br />
<strong>Guerra</strong> 5<br />
White Paintings (1951) [Figure 1], which consisted of seven white canvases painted flat white (no<br />
gestural strokes, no texture), was indicative of these feelings of silence of the artist, a reaction to the<br />
Abstract Expressionist movement, and the beginning of the idea he would explore most with Jasper<br />
Johns through the use of culturally familiar imagery in order to involve the viewer.<br />
Johns’ work explored this idea of silence as well. Beginning with his solemn, “silent” works<br />
such as Target with Plaster Casts (1955) [Figure 2], Johns presents work that is laboriously<br />
works, essentially, are about silence.<br />
manifested in encaustic, a temperamental mix of pigment<br />
suspended in beeswax. The composition consists of<br />
fragmented pieces of a plaster-cast male body enclosed in<br />
compartments above an encaustic target. Johns describes<br />
the painting in a sketchbook as “an object that tells of the<br />
loss, destructions, disappearance of objects. Does not<br />
speak of itself. Tells of others.” 17 This passage sums up<br />
the essence of the work perfectly. Target is in opposition<br />
to the idea of personal revelation through painting, and in<br />
the same spirit as Rauschenberg’s White Paintings. Both<br />
On top of this reaction to the soul-bearing individualism of Abstract Expressionism, both<br />
Rauschenberg and Johns move into a humorous parody of Abstract Expressionist style. Together<br />
they explored methods of creating seemingly original, expressionist works in styles that make the<br />
17 Jasper Johns [undated sketchbook] published in Jasper Johns, Ed. Alan R. Solomon, Jewish<br />
Museum, New York, 1964.