It was no surprise then that in 1954 he suffered depression; this dark time, however, was also his artistic turning point. That year, Zobel left Manila, entered the Rhode Island School of Design, and discovered the works of Mark Rothko. “I was astonished,” Zobel would recall later, “at looking at some pictures absolutely without topic.” Zobel was able to clarify his creative problem to himself: “Rothko used big masses of color, while I essentially was a designer. [. . .] Why couldn't I try to make something similar, [. . .] simply using the line? Of course there have been other and very important examples of this, but for me [the use of the line] was a discovery.”