Three Flags (1954-1955) by the American artist Jasper Johns is one of a series of flag paintings by the artist.
johns with flag in studio
Johns was making something new: recognizable, but different. And in Johns’ hands, flags — sacred objects to many — are a bit off-putting, intentionally. He paints, in his words, “things the mind already knows” and makes us see them differently.
“Trying to take you off your guard a little bit as a viewer — slow down and look in a new way,” Heyler says.
Johns also made a series of target and number paintings during the same period. In this piece the artist painted three separate flags and attached them to each other, creating a three-dimensional object.
“Do something, do something to that, and then do something to that.” Jasper Johns.
Jasper Johns Flag Interview
Jasper Johns Flag interview
Jasper Johns – An Allegory of Painting 1955 – 1965
Jasper Johns an Allegory of Painting 1955 - 1965
Commentary
While Johns’ painting extended the allover compositional techniques of Abstract Expressionism, his use of these techniques stresses conscious control rather than spontaneity.
The mature work of Jasper Johns begins in 1955 with his use of the American flag.
In the expressionist paint strokes of John’s flags, the vocabulary of geometry reentered American art. And the application of painterly richness of surface to a commonplace American icon signaled the transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art.
Three Greek columns; Ionic, Corinthian and Doric made up of the capital, shaft and base. Of the three columns found in Greece, Doric columns are the simplest. They have a capital (the top, or crown) made of a circle topped by a square. The shaft (the tall part of the column) is plain and has 20 sides.
There is no base in the Doric order. The Doric order is very plain, but powerful-looking in its design. Doric, like most Greek styles, works well horizontally on buildings, that’s why it was so good with the long rectangular buildings made by the Greeks. The area above the column, called the frieze [pronounced “freeze”], had simple patterns.
Above the columns are the metopes and triglyphs. The metope [pronounced “met-o-pee”] is a plain, smooth stone section between triglyphs. Sometimes the metopes had statues of heroes or gods on them. The triglyphs are a pattern of 3 vertical lines between the metopes.
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Human beings use threes to conceptualize everything. Three data points are enough to describe an entire set. Take time for example. We break it into before, during, and after. Look at the basic structure of color.
For example, primary colors in pigment (red, yellow, & blue) make up all colors. Color is also classified into primary, secondary, and tertiary. Look at our basic sentence structure to communicate. Subject, verb, object. In Japan the ordering is subject, object, verb, but they both utilize three components to communicate. The list goes on and on and on. . .
This section includes three videos and three songs of Three is the Magic Number. This includes songs and videos by School House Rock, Blind Melon and De La Soul. We also include a featured article by the late Professor Alan Dundees on the number three in American culture. This section concludes with an interview with Zip FM, Tokyo, Japan by Michael S Eck, author of The Book of Threes.
I received an email from Miles Mendoza to feature the Book of Threes on the Steve Wright Show on BBC2. His family talk radio show cause hundreds of British entries into the book.
For about 30 years, Michael Eck has been thinking about threes. Things that come in threes. Now he combines that esoteric interest with his attachment to the Internet by creating what he hopes will be the book with the most authors ever (a lot more than three, anyway).
He suggests that in our minds we break concepts into three parts to understand whatever it is we are thinking about. We use threes to define systems. We use the third or middle point with regard to the extremes to define a point of view. Yadda yadda yadda.
The concept is simple. Just think of something that comes in threes, then go to this site and contribute it. For example: the colors on the American flag; Caesar’s most famous words, “Veni, vidi, vici” (“I came, I saw, I conquered”); the number of legs on each side of an insect.
There are three ways to enter your thoughts into the Book of Threes. 1). You can join and request author rights by contacting us. 2). If you want to remain anonymous, log in with username: anonymous, and password: guest. 3). You can send us your ideas using Contact Us and we will enter the information for you.
To find specific information, use the search button and enter the key word or words you are looking for. You can then modify or narrow your search by using quotes around the phrase.
You can also browse the chapters by Art, Science, Philosophy, etc. . .
The late Dr. Alan Dundes, Professor of Folklore and Anthropology at the University of California Berkeley writes on and on and on about things that come in threes.