Untitled

The visually upbeat Untitled is an exuberant example of Jasper Johns' investigation into the ways of looking. Based on the composition of a painting from 1979 (which measured 17½ ft wide), each unique variant from the 1983 monotype series plays out in rythmical form a myriad of possibilities for line and color. Follow a single line as it crosses the zones within the work and it will do one of five things: continue in the same direction with the same color; bend but keep the same color; keep the direction but change color; bend and change color; or simply meets it's mirror image. In her catalogue for the exhibition 'Jasper Johns, A Print Retrospective' held at the Museum of Modern Art in 1986 (in which the present work was exhibited), Riva Castleman described the series from which the present work comes as 'one grand and final adieu to the crosshatches' (p. 43). The present example possesses one of the most vibrant color schemes used in the series: the predominantly primary hatches interspersed with only occasional flashes of secondary purple, orange and green.