Tranquil Study, Op. 92

With its morphing streaks of white light across the top of the screen, Tranquil Study, Op. 92 commences with a celestial apparition—a comet or faint aurora—crossing a low horizon above a purplish-blue sea. The white forms enter the screen from the upper-right corner and create the illusion of an outward trajectory, eventually disappearing on the left behind a “distant promontory,” as Wilfred called it in a letter to a prospective buyer. The explicitly “narrative” composition, which has a distinct beginning and end, stands in stark contrast to the repeated but variable patterns in his later works.