Jasper Johns, "Three Flags" (1958), Whitney Museum of Art
This composition of wax and pigment on a canvas (encaustic style) by 20th C. American painter Jasper Johns stirs many things in me. It reminds me of the beautiful geometry of our flag. It brings back, from childhood, memories of prints my grandmother had on her wall…..cheesy folk art images of Main Street USA, images I’m sure that Johns was trying to invoke. But looking at it now, it informs me that even though I consider myself rather jaded and suspicious of sentimentalism, I am truly jingoistic at heart. At our core, at our very base, the United States is a nation that meant something and still means something beyond just our shores. From France in 1789 to Tehran in 2009, crowds still quote Thomas Jefferson’s beautiful prose: “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” Have a thankful Independence Day.
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