Is it a flag or a painting?~Jasper Johns

You can tell that the forty-eight state American flag below is not a picture of the work of Jasper Johns.  However, you can’t help having patriotic feelings when looking at Mr. Johns’ famous painting, Flag. So, is it a flag or a painting? Although I’ve seen many photographs of the painting I’ve not had the privilege of actually seeing it. However, I’ve always admired the work and hope someday to be able to.

The painting originally started in oil paint on a bed sheet, but was then changed to encaustic painting. The method to produce encaustic painting is to mix pigments with molten beeswax.

Mr. Johns kept the colors fluid and applied them onto the cloth with either brushes, palette knives or other spatulate instruments.

The painting, Flag, is an encaustic, oil and collage on fabric mounted on plywood. To create the collage, he applied cut and torn pieces of newspaper with the hot wax. The collage material also had paint applied.

The painting is built up in a uniform web of brushstrokes and encaustic, cut and torn collage elements which are laid over one another. This gave the painting a textured surface and an awesome appearance. Running across edges of the stripes are drips and dribbles of the encaustic.

I did not use an image of the painting, however I think I could have based on its internet popularity, however I am showing this image  which depicts a small detail of the painting. This minimal copying qualifies as fair use because 1) though the original is a creative work, 2) this image is used for the informational purpose of illustrating the artist’s technique, 3) very little of the original work has been copied, and 4) this image has no potential to supplant the commercial value of the original painting.