Perilous Night by Jasper Johns

Perilous Night detail by Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns, Perilous Night (detail, "crosshatch" painting), 1982, encaustic on canvas with objects, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection 1995.79.1

The abstract painting beneath one of the arms is a "miniature" Jasper Johns. Its crosshatch motif refers to a series of works Johns made during the 1970s. Johns first saw the pattern on an oncoming car: "I only saw it for a second, but knew immediately that I was going to use it. It had all the qualities that interest me—literalness, repetitiveness, an obsessive quality, order with dumbness, and the possibility of complete lack of meaning."

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