Robert and Jasper

As Maansi said in her presentation, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg frequently collaborated and Rauschenberg taught Johns a great deal. Their friendship is one of the greatest in modern art. What I find interesting is how different their personalities were...Johns was a shy person who rarely gave interviews. Rauschenberg was exactly the opposite; very social, very energetic. While they apparently clashed in private sometimes, they (of course) brought the best out of each other in the studio. I can totally see how different their personalities are in both artists' respective artwork; Rauschenberg's spontaneous nature shines through the colorful pop art images on his pieces while Johns' style was a little more slow and deliberate. He tended to obsessively repeat themes which I think is pretty cool because there was a purpose behind this and it showed how intensely focused he was as an artist and as a person in general.