Aspects of Jasper Johns: Introduced by Edward Lucie-Smith

He uses elaborate systems of arbitrary rules to regulate his patterns of markings - the absolute opposite of the freewheeling calligraphy typical of Abstract Expressionist predecessors such as Jackson Pollock. Where images are present, they are often mirrored or doubled. Or else camouflaged and concealed. His paintings therefore take on the character of being not simply objects to be looked at, but puzzles to be solved by the viewer. This aspect of his work perhaps explains by his work has had such a solid, long-lasting appeal to professional commentators on contemporary art. They feel great satisfaction in solving the riddles he sets them, and perhaps too, a bit of schadenfreude in contemplating those who are not sophisticated enough to crack the code. ELS In his introductory essay The Enigma of Jasper Johns author and art hist Edward Lucie-Smith considers the art of Jasper Johns, pivotal figure in the development of American contemporary art, whose sixty years activity is represented in a major exhibition at the Royal Academy London. The study is illustrated by key works along with a room by room view of the exhibition.

About the Author :
Edward Lucie-Smith was born in 1933 at Kingston, Jamaica. He moved to Britain in 1946, and was educated at King's School, Canterbury and Merton College, Oxford, where he read History. Subsequently he was an Education Officer in the R.A.F., then worked in advertising for ten years before becoming a freelance author. He is now an internationally known art critic and historian, who is also a published poet (winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize), an anthologist and a practicing photographer. He has published more than a hundred books in all, including a biography of Joan of Arc (recently republished by Penguin in paperback as a 'classic biography'), a historical novel, and more than sixty books about art, chiefly but not exclusively about contemporary work. A number of his art books, among them Movements in Art since 1945, Visual Arts of the 20th Century, A Dictionary of Art Terms and Art Today are used as standard texts throughout the world. Movements in Art since 1945, first published in 1969, has been continuously in print since that date. He has been curator of a number of exhibitions, including three Peter Moores Projects at the Walker Art Gallery Liverpool, (surveys of contemporary British art), The New British Painting (which toured US venues in 1988-90) and two artist retrospectives, Lin Emery and George Dunbar, both for the New Orleans Museum of Art. He has been a jury member for the John Moores prize exhibition in Liverpool, and for biennials in Cairo, Sharjah, Alexandria and Belgrade. He was curator of 'New British Art'. at the Orion Gallery in Ostend (April-June 2001), of 'New Classicism: Artists of the Ideal', at Palazzo Forti, Verona (AprilSeptember 2002), and of 'Gods Becoming Men' at the Frissiras Museum, Athens [July-September 2004).