This 1955 portray depicts an ordinary archery goal overlaid with 4 plaster casts of human faces, organized in a row throughout the highest. The work combines recognizable imagery with summary expressionist influences, blurring the traces between illustration and abstraction. The encaustic method, utilizing pigmented beeswax, lends a textured, nearly sculptural high quality to the floor.
The piece is important inside Johns’ oeuvre and the broader artwork historic context for its problem to standard notions of artwork. By using commonplace objects and recognizable varieties, the artist questions the very definition of artwork and the connection between picture and object. The work anticipates Pop Artwork’s embrace of widespread tradition whereas sustaining a connection to Summary Expressionism’s deal with floor and course of. It raises questions on notion, identification, and the character of seeing, prompting viewers to rethink how they interpret acquainted symbols.