Kenneth Noland’s Untitled, 1971, represents the pinnacle of the artist’s Stripes series, which matured between 1967 and 1970. Noland perpetually explored the boundaries of shape and color through his clearly defined compositional movements; exemplary in his circles of the late 1950’s and early 60s, his infamous chevrons of the mid 1960s, and followed by his 1964 diamonds. His Stripes abandon these geometric forms and instead act as a horizontal reading of color in its purest form. Untitled, rendered in muted shades of periwinkle, sage, cream and peach, mirrors the human perception of liner absorption. The raw, sandy canvas peaks through in 5 identical stripes, acting as line breaks in an otherwise wordy, colorful text. The horizontality of Untitled acts as a vast landscape that cannot be entirely visually consumed at one time, as the eyes of the viewer instead dart back and forth with swift momentum. This lyricism engrosses the viewer in the simplicity of the running lines of text or music. Noland, a jazz music enthusiast, believed the improvisational aspects of jazz mirrors the unexpected, visual response to formal painting, stating that the “purely formal characteristic exercise the senses.” Aptly stated by jazz musician J. J. Johnson, "Jazz is restless. It won't stay put and it never will."