Artists Who Inspired Jasper Johns

The creative partnership between Johns and Rauschenberg marked a transformative period in modern art, bridging traditional boundaries and challenging the conventions of Abstract Expressionism. Meeting in the vibrant New York art scene of the early 1950s, Johns and Rauschenberg shared a mutual disinterest in the emotive, introspective style of the Abstract Expressionists. Rauschenberg, known for his pioneering Combines, works that merged painting and sculpture by incorporating everyday, found objects, offered Johns a new artistic vocabulary. Inspired by Rauschenberg’s vision, Johns began to introduce familiar, iconic symbols like flags and targets into his work, reimagining them not as abstract forms but as cultural symbols carrying both personal and collective significance.

Through their exchanges, Rauschenberg encouraged Johns to focus on objects that were widely recognisable, inviting viewers to engage with art as a shared experience rather than an elusive, deeply personal one. Their collaborative influence helped shape what would become known as Neo-Dada and Proto-Pop, movements that questioned the solemnity of Abstract Expressionism and set the stage for Pop Art’s exploration of everyday imagery. Together, Rauschenberg and Johns made art that was grounded in the real world, forever altering how artists and audiences relate to art and pushing the boundaries of what art could signify.

Duchamp, an avant-garde pioneer and key figure of the Dada movement, profoundly influenced Johns’ conceptual approach to art. Duchamp’s revolutionary concept of the ‘readymade’, ordinary, manufactured objects presented as art to defy traditional aesthetics and question the nature of art itself, struck a deep chord with Johns. Duchamp’s radical rethinking of art as a mental and intellectual pursuit, rather than mere visual pleasure, encouraged Johns to adopt everyday symbols, such as numbers and maps, as integral components of his work, not as abstract icons but as deeply embedded cultural references that provoke thought and introspection.

Meeting Duchamp in 1960 was a pivotal moment for Johns, reaffirming his commitment to creating art that engages the viewer’s intellect as much as the eye. In works like According to What (1964), Johns paid homage to Duchamp’s legacy, embedding elements that invite interpretation and reflection, much like Duchamp’s famed Tu m’ (1918). This piece embodies Johns’ dedication to challenging viewers’ assumptions about art, perception, and meaning. As Johns himself observed, Duchamp’s greatest achievement might have been his ability to “bring doubt into the air that surrounds art”, a principle that Johns would embrace and make central to his own work.

Composer John Cage’s groundbreaking theories on chance and indeterminacy left a lasting impression on Johns, prompting him to reconsider the role of control and spontaneity in his art. Cage’s avant-garde music compositions, which frequently incorporated elements of chance, led Johns to explore ways to introduce spontaneity into his creative process. While Johns typically worked with precision, Cage’s influence inspired him to relinquish some control and embrace unpredictability, opening his work to a new sense of freedom and depth.

In response to Cage’s ideas, Johns adopted encaustic techniques, using layers of heated wax and other materials to introduce an element of chance into his paintings. This method allowed for unexpected textures and layering, creating a multidimensional surface that blurred the line between painting and object. Cage’s philosophy also fueled Johns’s interest in breaking from the artist’s ego, distancing himself from the emotional intensity of Abstract Expressionism in favour of a more deliberate, material-focused approach. This embrace of imperfection and the unexpected enabled Johns to craft pieces that engage viewers in unique ways, and to discover new details with each encounter.

Merce Cunningham, a visionary choreographer and longtime friend of Johns, had an equally transformative influence on Johns’s ideas of space, rhythm, and the absence of narrative. Cunningham’s revolutionary approach to dance, eschewing conventional storytelling in favour of an exploration of movement and space itself, invited Johns to view his own work as a stage, where symbols and forms coexist with a sense of autonomy. Just as Cunningham allowed his dancers to move independently, unconstrained by fixed narratives, Johns arranged familiar images like flags and targets across his canvases, creating compositions that resist singular interpretation and instead allow each viewer to draw their own meanings.

Cunningham’s collaborative nature and willingness to work with artists across disciplines, from musicians like Cage to visual artists like Rauschenberg, influenced Johns to see art as an interplay of forms and ideas rather than as isolated expressions. Through this lens, Johns began to explore the visual equivalent of choreography, using repetition and rhythm in recurring motifs. Much like Cunningham’s performances, which integrated chance and subtle patterns, Johns’s work invites viewers to navigate his compositions in an intuitive, open-ended manner. This dynamic arrangement of symbols and forms allows each audience member to engage with the art from their own perspective, mirroring the flexibility and independence at the heart of Cunningham’s dance philosophy.

In revisiting Johns's work and influences, we see an artist who navigated the dynamic intersections of collaboration, philosophy, and form to reshape the landscape of modern art. Johns was not simply creating images; he was redefining the relationship between artist, artwork, and viewer, challenging each to engage with art in a more profound way. From Duchamp’s questioning of art’s purpose to Rauschenberg’s embrace of the everyday, Johns absorbed and transformed these influences, constructing a legacy that urged art into new territories of meaning and thought. In an era defined by rapid cultural shifts, Johns’s art is a testament to the transformative power of intellectual curiosity and collaborative spirit, reminding us that art is as much about provoking questions as it is about offering answers. His legacy endures, not just in the symbols he brought to life, but in the enduring inspiration he left for artists to view their work as part of a larger, ever-evolving dialogue with the world.