Object number2008.27.3

17 Drawings by Thoreau

Date1978

Artist John Cage (American, 1912-1992)

CultureAmerican

MediumEtching and photo engraving

EditionArtist's proof 5, edition of 25

DimensionsPlate mark: 22 1/16 x 27 15/16 in. (56 x 71 cm)
Sheet: 24 7/16 x 36 5/8 in. (62 x 93 cm)
Matted: 32 x 37 3/4 in. (81.3 x 95.9 cm)

Credit LineGift of Leon Despres in memory of Marian Alschuler Despres, class of 1930

On View

Not on view

Period20th c

Classification(s)

SignedSigned, titled, and dated (LLC)

Label TextJohn Cage, perhaps best known for his avant-garde musical compositions, applied the same principles of chance and indeterminacy that defined his music to his visual art. In 1978, Cage began working with Crown Point Press in California to produce prints with the same concept of “chance operation” that he had previously explored in musical compositions like Music of Changes. In the collection of etchings 17 Drawings by Thoreau, produced in that first year, Cage used drawings from Henry David Thoreau’s journal, which would be selected and arranged by chance through Cage’s pre-planned parameters. For Cage, chance operations allowed him to remove subjectivity from his art and to mimic nature’s form of operation. He also believed that his creative philosophy closely aligned with that of Henry David Thoreau, admiring how he “hoped to find a way of writing which would allow others to not see and hear how he had done it, but to see what he had seen and to hear what he had heard.” By combining his artistic process with Thoreau’s drawings, Cage doubles down on the way both his own work, and that of Thoreau, obscure the artist’s subjective influence in favor of natural unpredictability.

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