树

“When I first made a grid,” Martin said, “I happened to be thinking of the innocence of trees and then this grid came into my mind and I thought it represented innocence . . . and so I painted it and then I was satisfied. I thought, this is my vision.” Martin made fine vertical lines and lightly shaded horizontal bands in oil and pencil, softening the geometric structure, which seems to expand beyond the confines of the canvas. For Martin the grid evoked not a human measure but an ethereal one—the boundless order or transcendent reality associated with Eastern philosophies.