"Mortality is a solemn construction of a standing shaft and five swinging vertical elements, carrying with it a host of associations. The delicately balanced pending forms, suggest the ticking of the cosmic clock (shades of Bucky Fuller) and, also, sounds. The measures of music--the silence and rhythmic occurrences of abstract sound--are inherent in this conception. The jointed forms that swing free invoke at least the expectation (time) of a gong sound or the muted music of Eastern temples. The heavy lintel clamped to the summit bears down on the fragile members below and indicates Noguchi's profound assessment of the principles of Japanese structuring"
-Dore Ashton (D. Ashton Noguchi East And West, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1992, p. 152).