The Awakening of Spirit: Artistic and Thematic Influences on the Evolution of Mark Tobey’s ‘White Writing’

This paper is a distillation of the author’s dissertation submitted for the Degree of Master of Arts by Research in History of Art: Renaissance to Modernism to the School of Humanities at the University of Buckingham in September 2016. The dissertation sought to answer the question, ‘What were the artistic and thematic influences on the evolution of the “white writing” style of the American painter, Mark Tobey?’ Tobey’s distinctive approach to abstraction brought him great acclaim and considerable success in the middle decades of the 20th century but today barely receives a footnote or a few brief sentences in art history texts and courses. It is the intention of this author to argue for the originality and importance of Tobey’s contribution to modern painting, and explain how he arrived at this unique style.

This paper is divided into three parts. The first explores the artistic figures and movements that had an impact on Mark Tobey’s early development. The second focuses on the wide and varied range of thematic sources for Tobey’s painting throughout his life. The painter cited them as ‘the Orient, the Occident, science, religion [and] cities…’ In the third part, the years Tobey spent as a teacher at Dartington Hall in Devon will be examined, including the painter’s travels to the Far East with his friend, the potter Bernard Leach, and the particular circumstances and influences that resulted in the painter’s artistic breakthrough when he produced his first so-called ‘white writing’ paintings at Dartington.