Three Flags

“My primary concern is visual form. The visual meaning may be discovered
afterwards – by those who look for it. Two meanings have been ascribed
to these American Flag paintings of mine. One position is: ‘He’s painted
a flag so you don’t have to think of it as a flag but only as a
painting’. The other is: ‘You are enabled by the way he has painted it
to see it as a flag and not as a painting.’ Actually both positions are implicit in the paintings, so you don’t have to choose.”

Three Flags, 1958 by Jasper Johns