Barton adored classical music, which he often listened to while he drew. In this drawing, the domestic setting is signaled by a bookshelf, a section of paneled wall, and an unadorned lightbulb hanging from a chain. At left, violinists and a cellist surround a piano; an audience hovers around them. The line forming the headless piano player’s left arm extends from the milk poured by a rendering of the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer’s Milkmaid (ca. 1660). In Barton’s world, line was capable of stitching together past and present, painting and music, and perhaps most importantly, art and life.
Rick Barton (1928–1992)
Rick Barton’s Chinese Line, April 25, 1960
Pen and ink
Rick Barton papers (Collection 2374), UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles