Jasper Johns at the Whitney

Until I went to this huge show, which covers one whole floor at the Whitney Museum in NY (as well as an equivalent amount of space at the Philadelphia Art Museum, though I haven’t been to that part yet), I had no idea of Jasper Johns’s range. I knew about the flags and the catenaries, maybe a bit more. But room after room revealed him to be a painter with as many phases as Picasso, none disappointing. The main blip is a painting I would have loved to take home with me; the two extras are among the variations on the same theme, which filled a whole room. Now I understand, at long last, why Johns is so admired!