Among the most influential (and, having produced nearly 400 films, arguably the most prolific) figures in the history of the American avant-garde, Stan Brakhage (1933-2003) created, early in his career, a monumental work aptly titled Art of Vision. Within it one finds the complete Dog Star Man (1963), a five part "cosmological epic" that tells the story of a woodsman's journey through the seasons and up a mountain, where he will plant, tear down, and then chop a white tree. A systematic investigation of form and structure that synthesizes the earlier film's multiple layers (themselves cinematic explorations marked by splices, hand-painted film, negative footage, scratches, and other techniques), Brakhage considered Art of Vision a full extension of Dog Star Man's singular themes. The resultant visual symphony, composed of overlapping and enmeshing suites, is an experience described by poet Robert Kelly as "a new continent of the eye's sway. Mind at the mercy of the eye at last."