Bill Viola

Moving Stillness: Mount Rainier 1979

Bill Viola’s Moving Stillness: Mount Rainier 1979 creates an immersive experience. In a darkened room, sounds from nature envelop the viewer, as a placid pool of water reflects a projected image of Mount Rainier onto a screen. The water is periodically disturbed, causing the image to dissolve and slowly recompose as the pool settles.

Viola’s work often explores ideas of death and rebirth, and Moving Stillness: Mount Rainier 1979 visualizes nature’s rhythms of renewal, which include moments of both fragility and strength. As an active volcano at rest, Mount Rainier embodies a similar dynamic of both quiet beauty and dramatic violence. Through the periodic disruption of a serenely majestic image, Viola’s work represents these paradoxes. The artist uses time as both a tool and a theme in his work.

Moving Stillness: Mount Rainier 1979 symbolizes the changes of nature that occur over the course of time; the work also controls the passage of time in the moment by requiring the viewer to pause and wait in order to encourage contemplation.