Untitled

Untitled

Jasper Johns

1983

ink

From the collection of Museum of Modern Art

About this work

This painting looks like two tall panels stuck side by side. On the left, thick black lines crisscross in messy, overlapping shapes—some look like stacked boxes, others like broken furniture. The right side is darker, with a blurry figure hunched over and a skull carved into a wooden door. The words "Gletscherabba" and "Schute-de-g" are scrawled below the skull. The left side uses a lot of sharp, repeated lines to build up shadowy forms. It’s like the artist drew with ink over and over to make things look solid but also fuzzy. If you like this style, check out cross-hatching next.

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