| The key question this thesis will pose and attempt to answer is this: were Jasper Johns's flag paintings mere exercises in formalist art, or are there deeper, not yet addressed layers of meaning to them? The answer to be argued is that the paintings must be seen and understood against the political and cultural context in which they were produced. Johns said that the idea came to him in a dream, without reference to meaning, but the endless formalistic analyses that permeate the literature do little justice to such powerful works. The iconographical and contextual aspects have not been sufficiently addressed in the literature, in part because of Johns's status in the art world (both ideologically and economically), and in part because his own words and statements are rarely questioned. |
