The flagstone pattern that covers the entire surface of the support was inspired by a stone wall that Jasper Johns encountered in New York’s Spanish Harlem neighborhood. Flagstones first appeared in his paintings in Harlem Light (1967), where they were rendered in red, white, and black. The motif later developed in Untitled (1972), a work combining crosshatching, flagstones, and three-dimensional wooden elements. An intaglio print based on this composition was subsequently included in Foirades/Fizzles (1976), a collaborative project between Johns and the writer Samuel Beckett.
Following this project—a limited-edition publication containing Beckett’s texts alongside thirty-three intaglio prints by Johns—the artist introduced monochromatic gray flagstones for the first time in Beckett (2005), created as a tribute to the writer. Gray occupies a significant place in Johns’s work. By suppressing the fixed associations and emotional effects often generated by vivid color, it allowed him to present objects in a more neutral and direct manner. Its quiet, restrained character also resonates with the atmosphere of Beckett’s writings.
Within (2005) was created using the flagstone pattern of Beckett as its point of departure. Here, however, a layer of crosshatching can be seen emerging beneath the flagstones. This underlying composition originated in a painting begun in 1983 and left unfinished for more than twenty years. Johns later returned to the canvas and, using a palette knife, applied the flagstone pattern across its surface as if laying actual stones. In the present intaglio print, a similar visual effect occurs: as viewers focus on the stone wall-like surface, the crosshatching concealed “within” gradually begins to reveal itself.
The arrangement of complementary colors—red and green, blue and orange, yellow and purple—further contributes to this effect, recalling how complementary colors merge to form gray. The colors that subtly emerge through the gray resemble living cells, suggesting an abstract structure concealed beneath the figurative image of a stone wall. In this way, the work continually invites viewers to look beyond its surface, encouraging them to search for what lies hidden underneath.