Face with Watch [5th state] 1996

Jasper Johns created this print, "Face with Watch", using etching and aquatint. He printed it in a gorgeous, earthy brown. There's a real sense of materiality here, a kind of stubborn physicality that I always appreciate in art. The color itself feels like something dug out of the ground. See how Johns uses line to build up forms, like the hatched rectangle at the center? The lines aren't just outlines; they create texture, volume, a kind of density. The watch hanging in the upper right corner seems to float in space, like some kind of symbol. The image is so immediate, but also kind of a puzzle. You know, in a way, Johns reminds me of Guston, another artist who embraced a kind of personal symbolism later in life. Both artists knew how to leave things open-ended, letting the viewer bring their own associations to the table.