“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.
In my last article I discussed Čiurlionis’ genius, single-handedly introducing Symbolism to his native Lithuania. Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) in contrast, lived and worked within well-established artistic traditions in Russia, in which the various avant-garde movements in music and art from
Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes brought music, art, and dance into the 20th century. Eschewing the traditional, Diaghilev worked with the leading artists in all fields to bring a new life to a fairly moribund art form.
Most of the music and art connections have been fairly simple: a picture of art and piece of music. In the case of Grünewald and Hindemith, we have a more complex inspiration that also has a political side. Matthias Grünewald
In last month’s article I discussed the Symbolist influence on music and art in France at the turn of the 20th century. It is of interest to note that this influence also played a role in the works of the
Paul Klee (1879-1940) was a Swiss-German painter with a unique style sometimes humorous, sometimes childlike, and always able to draw us into his work. Of all the composers we’ve looked at in this series, it is Klee who has inspired
In our series on Music and Art, we’ve been looking at works of music inspired by works of art. The influence also goes the other way, where works of art have been inspired by music. Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) came from
In this series on Music and Art, we’ve mainly been looking at representational pictures (people, trees, and landscapes). When we look at an artist from the world of abstract expressionism, all of our horizons open wide. Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) was
In 1902, after the successful debut of his opera Pelléas and Mélisande, Claude Debussy published many articles as a music critic under the pseudonym Monsieur Croche (similar to Paul Valéry’s pseudonym ‘Monsieur Teste’) in the ‘Revue Blanche’ and other publications.
