![]() ![]() Drawn to Zen’s self-revelatory and meditative capacity, he located a spiritual basis for his art through Buddhism, writing in 1950 that the “rejection of the lies and falsifications of modern Christian, Feudal aristocratic, and bourgeois society, of the property-loving world that the Renaissance tradition expressed, has led us, like many other modern artists, to affinities with the art of other cultures: Egypt and the ancient Mediterranean, Africa, the South Seas, and above all the Orient.” Ĭage shared Motherwell’s affinity for Eastern philosophy, first encountering Buddhism while in Seattle in 1936. Motherwell owned many books on Asian art and became interested in the subject during the mid-1940s in San Francisco. Some of these works conflated art with the samurai tradition, such as his Samurai series of 1974, while others referred directly to master calligraphers, including Shem the Pen Man of 1972. Inspired by Zenga, the Zen tradition of calligraphy, Motherwell often painted with thin washes of ink applied in an automatic manner. įor his tribute to Cage, Motherwell employed Japanese rice paper and China ink, appropriate materials considering that both were interested in Zen Buddhism. Motherwell considered an homage, “a thanks, an identification,” but by focusing on Cage’s later divergence from Abstract Expressionism, historians have yet to fully consider why Motherwell identified with Cage in the first place. Perhaps drawn to Cage because of this interest, he bestowed a great compliment upon him with his collage, as Motherwell previously devoted artworks only to those he deemed historically important, including Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, Irish author James Joyce, and French Symbolist Stéphane Mallarmé. Motherwell was fascinated by music and dedicated many artworks to famous composers throughout his career. With similar backgrounds, both men hailed from California, the two often shared tea while discussing philosophy, art, and music. Motherwell explained that he spent considerable time with Cage during the 1940s because Cage lived next door to his girlfriend in Cooper Village. Motherwell selected Cage to be music editor for the journal Possibilities, and their collaboration fostered a dynamic exchange of ideas. Both visited the Cedar Bar in New York, taught at Black Mountain College, and participated in the “Subjects of the Artist” school. Previous scholarship has cast Motherwell and Cage as rivals because of the aesthetic and philosophical differences they developed later in the 1950s, yet during their formative years the two were close, personally and professionally. Why, then, would Motherwell create a work of art honoring his adversary, the man whose “Lecture on Nothing” denied his artistic values? ![]() ![]() These heroic, artistic gestures were seemingly negated by Cage’s insistence on silence and nothingness. In his celebrated Elegies to the Spanish Republic, for example, Motherwell symbolically evoked the prized cojones of Spanish bullfights by painting abstracted phallic forms on a monumental scale. After all, Motherwell’s epic canvases epitomized the subjectivity that Cage would come to undermine, that of the male artistic genius. Considering this notorious rejection of Abstract Expressionist values, it might be surprising that in 1946, Robert Motherwell honored the composer with his collage, Blue with China Ink: Homage to John Cage. He replied to the audience’s questions with “one of six previously prepared answers regardless of the question asked,” and throughout the program reiterated, “I have nothing to say / and I am saying it… / As the talk goes on / we are getting / nowhere.” Exasperated by the cadence and lack of content in Cage’s presentation, artist Jeanne Reynal interrupted the performance, storming out of the room while shouting, “John, I dearly love you, but I can’t bear another minute.” įor many scholars, Cage’s performative silence “launched a major assault” on Abstract Expressionism, destabilizing the grand ambition of the New York School by replacing the artist’s ego with nothing. The composer responded with his infamous “Lecture on Nothing.” Discussing precisely what the title suggested, nothing, he asserted, “What we re-quire / is silence.” Such silence occurred throughout the speech in the form of lengthy pauses, as Cage organized his talk around repetition and read to a rhythm of four measures per line and twelve units per section. ![]() In 1949, John Cage was invited to speak at the Artists Club in New York City, an interdisciplinary arts school led by Robert Motherwell that would become a driving force behind Abstract Expressionism. Robert Motherwell’s Unlikely Homage to John Cageĭaniel Haxall, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania ![]()
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