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"Margaret was attracted to two works by Jasper Johns [b 1930]. The first titled Map [1961] and painted with broad, seemingly hurried brushstrokes of blue, red, yellow, and orange, bore a rough resemblance to a map of the United States, but with the borders blurred and overlapping.
"The second False Start [1959], with chaotic, sharp-edged splotches of blue, red, yellow, gray, white, and orange, also had words for the colors teenciled atop the splotches but almost never in the same color as the word. Margaret wasn't sure what all that meant, but she liked the bright, happy colors. Though she wouldn't have said so for fear of offending Charlotte, she really did find them somewhat childlike--but that was what she liked most about them. There was a playfulness to them, the sort of unbridled enthusiasm that usually fades with age or becomes buried by disappointments.
"Bitsy's appreciation of Johns was more nuanced.
"He's a trickster, trying to confuse our brains by painting the word in a different color, forcing us to look twice to make sure we got it right. Or a joker, she said, leaning closer to study the canvas, a naughty boy who scribbles on walls because he knows he can get away with it. Or maybe a philosopher? Challenging us to confront the fact that borders are just arbitrary lines marked out by somebody who woke up one day and decided to put them there. Or possibly all three. Hard to say." (all passages, 87 - 89)
by Marie Bostwick
More from author Marie Bostwick
and artist Jasper Johns
on my current book blog:
September: Life-Changing
@Kitti's List
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