Prayer, Design B

"Prayer, Design B" from 1939 is a second compositional variant of a prayer subject — a figure in the act of supplication or devotion, the body's posture expressing what the face may or may not show. Munakata's prayer figures occupy the space between secular and sacred: the act of prayer is a human gesture, but it is directed toward something beyond the human, and this in-between quality gave him rich material. The "B" designation implies a first version already existed, and the variant allows a different formal solution to the same fundamental human gesture.