“Art is not an end in itself, but a means of addressing humanity.”
Modest Mussorgsky
As philosopher Richard Wollheim says, art is “one of the most elusive of the traditional problems of human culture.” In its simplest manifestation, art is a form of communication that serves as a vehicle for the expression of emotions and ideas. As ideas and beliefs are culturally specific and constantly changing over time, there really is no generally agreed definition of what constitutes art. That being said, the classical branches of the visual arts are identified as painting, sculpture and architecture. Literature and poetry are considered part of the humanities or as one of the arts, while music, alongside theatre, film and dance belong to the performing arts. In this section you will discover not only specific explorations of individual art forms, but also a more detailed probing of the relationship between the visual arts and music, including painting and music, sculpture and music and architecture and music. Originally, poetry and music were treated as a unity, but gradually they have become more independent. Nevertheless, the two art forms have never forgotten their shared genetic makeup, and been intertwined for millennia. Art and music have engaged in a dynamic relationship that reveals a diverse range of human activity intended to be appreciated for their beauty.
A recent exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia ‘Jasper Johns and Edvard Munch: Love, Loss, and the Cycle of Life’ brought together works of the two painters, the Abstract Expressionist Jasper Johns (1930-) and the Norwegian
Hakushū Kitahara (1885-1942) is widely regarded as one of the most popular and important poets in modern Japanese literature. Active during the Taishō and Shōwa periods, and founder of his own literary group that included painters, musicians and actors, he
We generally don’t think of Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) as a source for song texts but rather as the man for tales of the realism and drama of the Victorian English countryside. Yet, when the 20th century hit, nearly all Hardy
Hector Berlioz ((1803-1869) is known for his monumental orchestral works, for his utter command of orchestration, and for his gothic horror in the Symphonie fantastique. We often forget, however, that he was also known for his songs. In a rare
If Gurre-Lieder was a cantata and The Book of the Hanging Gardens a song cycle, then we must separate out one more large cycle for examination. It’s not song as we might recognize it from Schubert and Schumann, but rather
The two big song cycles the Gurre-Lieder and the Book of the Hanging Gardens are actually even larger than normal. Gurre-Lieder is actually a cantata. The title means “Songs of Gurre,” referring to Gurre Castle in Denmark and the songs
We don’t generally think of Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) as a song composer but he wrote them from his earliest days as a composer in the early 1890s until the early 1930s. The poets that he set were some of the
In his delicately titled, Ariettes oubliées (Forgotten Little Songs), Claude Debussy (1862-1918) took the poetry of Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) and created a song cycle to match the stylistic subtleties of his poems. Debussy met the older poet via his mother-in-law.
