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Why did Jasper Johns’s Flag raise questions about the boundary between an object and a painting?

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Five Andy Warhol paintings of Campbell's soup cans, each labeled with a different soup variety, displayed in a row on a white wall at Museumsquartier in Vienna. — Pop art *Campbell's Soup Cans*, polymer paint on canvas by Andy Warhol, 1962; a selection of five on display in the Museumsquartier, Vienna.

Jasper Johns’s Flag (1954–55) challenged the boundary between an object and a painting by presenting a familiar, predesigned motif—the flag of the United States—as the subject of a work of art.12

By choosing a subject that is inherently flat and iconic, Johns created a "Duchampian philosophical conundrum": the viewer is forced to question whether the work is a painting of a flag or the flag itself. This ambiguity was heightened by his use of encaustic, a wax-based medium that created a thick, textured surface, and his decision to paint onto strips of newspaper adhered to canvas.21

Unlike the highly personal, emotional style of Abstract Expressionism that dominated the era, Flag offered an objective, cerebral approach. By rendering a recognizable, everyday object with painterly dexterity, Johns blurred the distinction between fine art and the commonplace, a concept that became a foundational influence on the Pop art movement.1342