Hello and welcome to the Anthropocene Reviewed, a podcast where we review different facets

of the Human-centered planet on a five-star scale.

I'm John Green and today I'll be reviewing two works of visual art, a series of six paintings

by Agnes Martin called With My Back to the World and an untitled 2003 ink drawing by

Hira Yuki-Doy.

But let's begin with our backs to the world.

The famous galorist Arnie Glimcher tells this story about the artist Agnes Martin.

Glimcher says that once his 11-year-old granddaughter Isabel was visiting Martin, the little girl

was holding onto a rose, clipped from a bush outside Martin's house.

And Agnes Martin took the rose and said to the girl, is this rose really beautiful?

And Isabel said yes.

And then Agnes Martin hid the rose behind her back and said, is the rose still beautiful?

Yes, said Isabel.

And then Agnes Martin said, you see Isabel, beauty is in your mind, not in the rose.

Martin had a hell of a life.

Born in rural Saskatchewan, Canada, she grew up feeling that her mother hated and resented

her.

According to Nancy Prinsenthal's book Agnes Martin, her life and art, fascinating if

prosaically titled biography, when Martin was about six she needed her tonsils out and

her mother gave her instructions on how to get to the hospital and told her to take the

street car.

So six-year-old Agnes went through the operation and the two-day recovery alone and then took

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