I wish there were more humor in my work than I see in it.

When Jasper Johns confessed, “I wish there were more humor in my work than I see in it,” he was not lamenting a lack of wit, but acknowledging the gravity of his own creation — the weight of an artist who sees too deeply, who paints with both the hand and the burdened soul. These words reveal the longing of one who has stared too long into the mirrors of meaning, symbols, and silence. For humor, in its highest form, is not mere laughter — it is lightness of being, the capacity to step outside oneself, to look at life with gentle irony. Johns, whose art dissected the symbols of modern America — the flag, the target, the numbers — wished, perhaps, for more play amid his profound reflection, more laughter to balance the solemn truth of seeing.

In the age of the ancients, the wisest philosophers taught that humor is the breath of the soul, that even the most solemn truths must be softened by the warmth of joy. When Johns speaks of wishing for “more humor,” he joins this lineage — the artists and thinkers who understood that all great art carries the risk of heaviness. For when one seeks truth too intently, when one dissects every symbol, every color, every layer of meaning, one can forget the laughter that first called him to create. His words are not self-pity, but humility. They are the sigh of a man who knows that art, like life, must dance as well as ponder.

Humor in art, as in life, is not the absence of depth — it is the freedom of spirit within depth. It is the spark that keeps the artist from being consumed by his own creation. Jasper Johns’s work — with its flags, maps, and ordinary objects made extraordinary — changed the language of modern art. Yet, in his wish for humor, we hear his awareness that even transformation can feel solemn. The act of turning the familiar into the strange demands an intensity that leaves little room for laughter. And yet, laughter — that divine breath of detachment — might have allowed him to see his own brilliance with a gentler eye.

Consider the story of Leonardo da Vinci, whose notebooks overflowed not only with diagrams of machines and anatomy, but with jokes, fables, and playful sketches of grotesque faces. Leonardo understood that humor feeds creativity — that to laugh at life is to keep the spirit supple and awake. Even Michelangelo, who sculpted gods from marble, often mocked himself in verse, calling his own body “a goitered man, burdened by his labor.” These masters carried the balance Johns sought — the balance between gravity and play, between awe and amusement, between the eternal and the everyday. For art that forgets to laugh forgets to live.

Perhaps that is the wisdom in Johns’s longing: that humor is not decoration, but salvation. To wish for more humor is to wish for lightness amid the weight of knowing. It is to seek renewal, to remind oneself that even the most serious creation must still be alive — breathing, surprising, imperfect. The artist who cannot laugh at his own work becomes the prisoner of his own mastery. The laughter Johns yearned for was not a mockery of art, but a return to innocence — the laughter of the child who first discovered color, form, and wonder.

There is a deep beauty in this awareness. It teaches us that even the masters yearn for balance — that wisdom is not the end of play, but its fulfillment. We, too, must guard against the heaviness that comes with overthinking our own lives. The search for meaning can become so intense that we forget to smile at our own humanity. Like Johns, we must learn to weave laughter back into our days — to find humor in failure, amusement in our imperfections, grace in our contradictions. Humor is not an escape from meaning; it is what allows meaning to breathe.

The lesson is this: No matter how profound your work, your duty, or your pain, never forget the sacred power of humor. Seek it not as a mask, but as medicine. Let it enter your art, your words, your living — for laughter restores the rhythm of the heart, the very rhythm that keeps creation alive. As Jasper Johns’s words remind us, even the deepest truths shine brighter when touched by light. For without humor, wisdom becomes weary — but with humor, it becomes eternal.