I love drawings, so I've always enjoyed making drawings that exist on their own. — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
I think a painting should include more experience than simply intended statement. — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
There may or may not be an idea, and the meaning may just be that the painting exists. — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
Old art offers just as good a criticism of new art as new art offers of old. — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
To be an artist you have to give up everything, including the desire to be a good artist. — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
One night I dreamed that I painted a large American flag, and the next morning I got up and I went out… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
I have no ideas about what the paintings imply about the world. I don't think that's a painter's business. He just paints… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
“As one gets older one sees many more paths that could be taken. Artists sense within their own work that kind of… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
I feel that works of art are an opportunity for people to construct meaning, so I don't usually tell what they mean.… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
Everybody is of course free to interpret the work in his own way., I think seeing a picture is one thing and… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
Put a lot of paint & a wooden ball or other object on a board. Push to the other end of the… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
In the place where I was a child, there were no artists and there was no art, so I really didn't know… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
Generally, I am opposed to painting which is concerned with conceptions of simplicity. Everything looks busy to me. — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
The only logical thing I can think of is that I knew there were such things as artists, and I knew there… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
Sometimes I see it and then paint it. Other times I paint it and then see it. Both are impure situations, and… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
In my early work, I tried to hide my personality, my psychological state, my emotions. This was partly due to my feelings… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
I was raised in South Carolina; I wasn't aware of any art in South Carolina. There was a minor museum in Charleston,… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
This image of wanting to be an artist - that I would in some way become an artist -was very strong. I… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
There was very little art in my childhood. I was raised in South Carolina; I wasn't aware of any art in South… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
My experience with life is that it's very fragmented. In one place certain kinds of thing occur, and in another place a… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
Sometime during the mid-50s I said, 'I am an artist.' Before that, for many years, I had said, 'I'm going to be… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
Donald Judd spoke of a 'neutral' surface, but what is meant? Neutrality must involve some relationship (to other ways of painting, thinking?)… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
Marcel Duchamp, one of this century's pioneers, moved his work through the retinal boundaries which had been established with Impressionism into a… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
To do a drawing for a painting most often means doing something very sketchy and schematic and then later making it polished. — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
What you might consider a bad work can be of extreme interest to an artist in ways which are not about its… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
Early on I was very involved with the notion of the painting as an object and tended to attack that idea from… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
Most of the power of painting comes through the manipulation of space... but I don't understand that. — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
As one gets older one sees many more paths that could be taken. Artists sense within their own work that kind of… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
Cubism is an anatomical chart of a way of seeing external objects. But I want to confuse the meaning of the act… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
Sometimes I see it and then paint it. Other times I paint it and then see it. Both are impure situations, and… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
At first I had some idea that the absence of color made the work more physical. Early on I was very involved… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
In the place where I was a child, there were no artists and there was no art, so I really didn't know… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
That's what painting does; it organizes vision in a certain way or suggests that certain things be paid attention to and certain… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
I think that one wants from a painting a sense of life. The final suggestion, the final statement, has to be not… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
Every artist feels alone and isolated, Friends are very important in terms of all sorts of definitions of oneself. They tell you… — Jasper Johns Copy Share Image
Early on I was very involved with the notion of the painting as an object and tended to attack that idea from different directions. — Jasper Johns Copy Share
Make something, a kind of object, which as it changes or falls apart (dies as it were) or increases in its parts (grows as… — Jasper Johns Copy Share
In my early work, I tried to hide my personality, my psychological state, my emotions. This was partly due to my feelings about myself… — Jasper Johns Copy Share
I have no ideas about what the paintings imply about the world. I don't think that's a painter's business. He just paints paintings without… — Jasper Johns Copy Share
I have meant what I have done. Or I have often meant what I have done. Or I have sometimes meant what I have… — Jasper Johns Copy Share
Art as a fantasy has been one of my earliest experiences. I suppose a lot of my childhood was a fantasy that involved getting… — Jasper Johns Copy Share
I was raised in South Carolina; I wasn't aware of any art in South Carolina. There was a minor museum in Charleston, which had… — Jasper Johns Copy Share
Sometime during the mid-50s I said, 'I am an artist.' Before that, for many years, I had said, 'I'm going to be an artist.'… — Jasper Johns Copy Share
That's what painting does; it organizes vision in a certain way or suggests that certain things be paid attention to and certain other things… — Jasper Johns Copy Share
I assumed that everything would lead to complete failure, but I decided that didn't matter – that would be my life. — Jasper Johns Copy Share
Bend color names which should be made of neon or copper tubing. Place an object on a surface - trace the object - then… — Jasper Johns Copy Share
My experience with life is that it's very fragmented. In one place certain kinds of thing occur, and in another place a different kind… — Jasper Johns Copy Share
