Ryoku 8
1985
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
color drypoint on Farnsworth paper
Dimensions
sheet: 45.7 x 61 cm (18 x 24 in.)
Classification
Portfolio
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Kathan Brown
Accession Number
1996.93.44.8
Art Historical Context
"Ryoku 8" is a captivating color drypoint print created by John Cage in 1985, part of a portfolio now housed in the National Gallery Art, generously gifted by Kathan Brown Best known as a pioneering avant-garde composer, Cage extended his revolutionary ideas of chance and indeterminacy into visual art during the 1970s and 1980s. This work exemplifies his experimental spirit, blending music's aleatory principles with printmaking to embrace unpredictability and impermanence. The medium—color drypoint on Farnsworth paper—highlights innovative technique. Drypoint involves scratching directly into...
About the Artist
John Cage
John Cage (1912–1992), born in Los Angeles to inventor John Milton Cage Sr. and journalist Lucretia "Crete" Harvey, an amateur artist, initially explored painting during travels in Europe in 1930 but soon pivoted to music. His early visual pursuits were sparsely documented, yielding no surviving works, as feedback favored his compositions. He married artist Xenia Andreyevna Kashevaroff, a bookbind...