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This moody composition depicts an abstracted waterscape—perhaps reeds waving gently, emerging from the water in which a cloudy sky is reflected. This etching is from Mark Tobey’s 1971 portfolio Transitions. Of his attempt to capture the transition of seasons, Tobey stated: “It’s trying to capture that transition and make it tangible. Make it sing. You might say it’s bringing the intangible into tangible”.
Mark Tobey, Movement in White 1970
Plate 7 from Transitions portfolio
Etching and aquatint on wove paper
plate 11 3/8 x 9 1/2 in. / 28.9 x 24.1 cm
paper 21 x 16 3/4 in. / 53.3 x 42.5 cm
Edition 75; this copy a unique proof aside from the edition, inscribed to Paul Cornwall-Jones (founder of Petersburg Press) from the artist, signed and dated 12 Oct. 1972.
John Cage once said of going on a walk with Mark Tobey: “It was the first time that someone else had given me a lesson in looking without prejudice, someone who didn’t compare what he was seeing with something before, who was sensitive to the finest nuances of light. Tobey would stop on the sidewalks, sidewalks which we normally didn’t notice when we were walking, and his gaze would immediately turn them into a work of art. He was attentive to the slightest detail. For him, everything was alive. He had an extraordinary sense of the presence of things.”
