Score for Changes and Disappearances #32
1982
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
graphite on wove paper
Dimensions
sheet: 27.31 x 66.04 cm (10 3/4 x 26 in.)
Classification
Drawing
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Kathan Brown
Accession Number
2012.110.12
Art Historical Context
**Score for Changes and Disances #32** (1982) by John invites visitors into the experimental world of one of the 20th century's most innovative artists. Cage, a pioneering American composer and philosopher (1912–1992), blurred the boundaries between music, art, and chance in his later works. This graphite drawing on wove paper, measuring 27.31 x 66.04 cm, belongs to his *Changes and Disappearances*, where he embraced impermanence and indeterminacy—inspired by Zen Buddhism and the I Ching. Created through meticulous yet aleatory processes, it serves as both a visual artwork and a musical score,...
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...