When Macdonald left Vancouver for Nootka Sound, B.C., in 1935, he wrote of his desire to find success with paintings developed from a “spiritual expression” of nature. This breakthrough work of an abstracted evening sky with its richly vibrating imagery is one of Macdonald’s first “modalities,” or “thought forms in nature.” Reaching beyond representation, he sought to portray the concept of the cosmic. In Departing Day, he felt he had created something unique, “an expression all my own.” The discoveries of this intensive period of exploration became Macdonald’s preoccupation for the next decade.