Perilous Night by Jasper Johns

Field Painting by Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns, Field Painting, 1963-1964, oil on canvas with objects, Collection of the Artist

Field Painting, for example, pivots references both to art-making and Johns’ own career. The primary colors red, yellow, and blue are spelled out in letters hinged perpendicularly to the canvas, where they also appear in stencil-like doubles. Attached to them are various studio tools. The Savarin coffee tin and Ballantine beer can both allude to Johns' studio paraphernalia and to his appropriation of them as motifs in his work. Passages of smeared and dripped paint, a footprint, light switch, and a neon “R” collude with other visual codes to multiply the possibility of associations.

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