Best known as an experimental composer and performer, John Cage (1912–1992) was also an active visual artist who created an extensive body of prints, drawings, and watercolors over the last twenty years of his life. The Sight of Silence: John Cage’s Complete Watercolors provides the first opportunity to see all 125 signed watercolors that Cage created during four week-long sessions at the Mountain Lake Workshop, Virginia, between 1983 and 1990.
In all of his work, regardless of medium, Cage consistently dismissed conventional aesthetics by limiting or eliminating the artist’s choice in the creative process. In composing his watercolors, he relied on his signature method of "chance operations," guided by a system of random numbers derived from the ancient Chinese Book of Changes, or I Ching.
This book’s critical essay and accompanying workshop diaries relate the methods at play in Cage’s visual art to those of his musical compositions and theater pieces. The accompanying DVD offers a "live" view of John Cage at work, featuring a public reading with audience discussion, as well as an interview with him about his watercolor paintings. As visual evidence of the methods of chance that Cage employed for decades, the watercolors in this book and the video footage on the accompanying DVD offer an entrée into Cage’s music and writings and present a greatly enhanced understanding of one of the twentieth century’s most mystifying artists and most creative thinkers.

The Sight of Silence: John Cage's Complete Watercolors

Arts & Photography

Kass, Ray

History & Criticism

Univ of Virginia Pr

Black cloth with gilt title. (175) pp, many plates and illustrations. Invitation to the opening laid in.

Morris Graves: Vision of the Inner Eye

Braziller, in association with the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C

His work reveals a world of nature, ranging from joyous pines to blind and wounded birds, that is at once familiar and yet impressively mysterious. His techniques are heavily influenced by the Orient.

George Braziller

Uniting fifty never-before-seen watercolor images, this book explores the powerful influence of Zen on the renowned artist and composer’s work. This book brings together fifty never-before-seen watercolor images from the brush of renowned artist and composer John Cage. These pieces were initially considered a by-product of a 1988 Mountain Lake Workshop, test sheets used to experiment with the flow of color from Cage’s brush as he prepared for larger Zen pieces, but authors Stephen Addiss and Ray Kass unite them here to explore the influence of Zen in Cage’s life. They juxtapose the compositions with the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures, a series of images used to communicate the essence of Zen for nearly one thousand years. They refer fragments of Cage’s poetry and his many statements about Zen practice, providing a fascinating lens through which the reader can view the Mountain Lake Workshop paintings. Cage’s images seem to become mysterious echoes of the centuries-old Ten Ox-Herding Pictures themselves, images about searching for the path to enlightenment. 50 color, 12 black-and-white illustrations

John Cage: Zen Ox-Herding Pictures

Addiss, Stephen

Reference

George Braziller, Inc.

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Books by Kass, Ray

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kass, Ray. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Sight of Silence: John Cage's Complete Watercolors

Morris Graves: Vision of the Inner Eye

Morris Graves: Vision of the Inner Eye

John Cage: Zen Ox-Herding Pictures