‘Cracked Line through Leaves’ was completed on the 2 November 1986 on Glasgow Green, as part of a commission by the University of Strathclyde for the exhibition ‘Perspectives: Glasgow - A New Look, 1987’. Goldsworthy had never been to Glasgow before and on his arrival he experienced what he felt was the “most intense autumn weather… and the most extraordinary range of colours in the leaves”. The crack has been a recurring theme in Goldsworthy’s work since 1976, and its unnerving blackness and allusion to earthquakes is paralleled in his ‘hole’ works. Goldsworthy commented: “I feel a deep insecurity in nature. A natural, unpredictable and violent energy. The black holes and cracks are windows into that energy”.