Cage, John

Cage, John (1912–1992). American composer, philosopher, writer, teacher, printmaker, and draughtsman. Cage is principally famous as a composer, in which role ‘he has had a greater impact on world music than any other American composer of the 20th century’ (New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 1980), but he had a deep interest in the visual arts, collaborated with and influenced many of his artist friends, and late in life acquired a reputation as a printmaker. He was born in Los Angeles into a cultured family (his father was an engineer and inventor and his mother a journalist). After being a star pupil at high school, he went to Pomona College, California, in 1928, but he dropped out of his course in 1930 and spent a year and a half travelling around Europe, studying art and architecture as well as music. He tried his hand at abstract painting, but after his return to the USA he concentrated on music; his training included a period of study (1935–7) with Arnold Schoenberg, who himself was interested in painting (see BLAUE REITER). After a period of varied activity (including a spell as a dance-class accompanist), Cage settled in New York in 1942 and became a prominent figure in avant-garde circles, his artist friends eventually including Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Jasper Johns, and Robert Motherwell.

In 1943 Cage directed a concert at the Museum of Modern Art, including three of his own pieces, and this established his reputation. His compositions are extremely unorthodox, cultivating random and chance effects and experimenting with unusual sound sources, including electronic devices and the ‘prepared piano’ (Cage's invention), in which a piano is transformed into a percussion instrument by the insertion of various objects between the strings. He toured widely performing his works and often received abuse, but David Mason Greene writes that ‘through all his ups and downs’ he ‘remained unbothered, cheerful, and eager for the next step forward … whether in most instances the results qualify as music, save by a kind of Alice-in-Wonderland logic, is questionable, and it remains to be seen whether Cage has liberated the art or, in the desperate way of the twentieth century, painted it into yet one more corner’ (Greene's Biographical Encyclopedia of Composers, 1985). In 1948–9 Cage lectured at the Subjects of the Artist School on ‘Indian Sand Painting or the Picture that is Valid for One Day', and from 1948 to 1952 he spent the summers teaching at Black Mountain College, where in 1952 he organized an event that has been described as the first Happening. Among the students he met at Black Mountain College was Robert Rauschenberg, who was one of the artists most directly influenced by Cage's example in using unconventional materials and procedures (for another example of his influence see VIDEO ART). Cage often treated his scores as visual compositions (they have been exhibited in galleries), and from 1978 he began experimenting with printmaking (mainly etching). In the 1980s he also took up drawing seriously. David Sylvester is of the opinion that his best graphic works ‘are among the most beautiful prints and drawings made anywhere in the Eighties'.