New River Watercolor, Series I, No. 3 1988

John Cage made "New River Watercolor, Series I, No. 3" using watercolors. Look at how the marks just bloom and bleed into the paper, each a result of Cage’s delicate but intentional hand movements. It’s art as a dance, a performance captured in pigment. The paper itself, with its soft, handmade quality, seems to participate in the creation. There's a tension between the watery washes and the stark, almost architectural blocks of color. Notice the loop on the right, how the orange fades in and out, revealing the layers beneath, like memories surfacing. You can almost feel the pressure of the brush, the speed of the gesture. Cage was deeply inspired by Zen Buddhism, and you can see this influence in the way he embraces chance and spontaneity. It reminds me of the work of Cy Twombly, who also used gesture and mark-making to create open-ended, poetic compositions. Cage's work invites us to slow down, to notice the subtle shifts and changes that occur in the act of creation. It's less about what it is and more about how it becomes.