Figure 4

<p>Once asked about his use of numerals as subjects for painting, Johns replied, “They seemed to me preformed,<br>conventional, depersonalized, factual, exterior elements.” That is, they freed Johns from any obligation to construct a pictorial narrative or express his interior life. Despite the ease with which we recognize the number <em>4</em>, Johns plays with its meaning in the title: the word <em>figure</em> winks at the tradition of “figural” (or representational) painting, and the number 4 sounds like the word for, leaving the title entirely open-ended, like an unfinished sentence. Meanwhile the monumental <em>4</em> of the painting itself is almost lost amid the lively patchwork of brushstrokes.</p>