Music & Art

Music and art when fused together can create a powerful experience for an audience. The ability to see music in a painting and to use brush stokes to conduct music onto the canvas can be seen as a form of synchronicity. Therefore, music can directly respond to art and in turn art can be reflected in its corresponding musical form.

An abstract painting should invite a viewer to see or find something for themselves within the work. All they are ever given from the artist is merely a suggestion. Hopefully a painting demands the eye's attention for some reason, sometimes good, sometimes bad, but valid either way. A piece of music must also speak to its audience, suggesting a subject and leading the ear on a journey.

The correlation between music and art is almost endless.

For example, one of the most musical subjects to paint is the landscape.

A unifying rhythm could relate to the underlying theme of the landscape and together they could produce their own song. A melody can be polyphonic as the painting itself is layered.

The base notes of a piece of music could easily relate to the darker colours as the treble could relate to the lighter.

Polyphony relates to the layered and textured surfaces, as the use of sustain peddle could signify the soft roundness of the landscape. One could then say that staccato is the mark making of the expressionist, pianissimo, the lightness of touch while fortissimo could relate to the strength of a brush stoke.

A crescendo of colour can allow the viewer to be immersed by auditory and visual stimulation when both audio and three dimensional works are presented at the same time.

An exhibition can be taken into the third dimension creating a kind of installation by its creator.

The art, music comparison is one that has fascinated many people, particularly those with the ability to relate colour directly to sound.Even though it is a medical problem (like a glitch in the brain) it could be considered a rare gift by some.

There are many artists throughout history who have been influence by both music and art.

The fusion of the two provides a wonderful form of performance art and the artworks can be like illustrations to a story. I guess you could reverse that, and say that the music illustrates the art.

Either way, art and music go together.

Article provided by Fiona Joy Hawkins :

The fusion of art music was always inevitable for Fiona Joy Hawkins. Images can be written as music and music can be used to describe images, thoughts and emotions. It is a form of synchronicity when you can see something and write the music to describe it, or listen to music and transfer it onto the canvas using brush strokes as if conducting the music. You can define light, colour and texture by rhythm and melody. Light and shade, velocity and movement all have a similar musical response.

My inspiration for both art and music are often from the landscape, and even though I paint bright colourful abstracts, I write emotional music often in a minor key. Yet they do go together. The manuscript in the music allows the viewer to hear and see the music at the same time, bringing an exhibition into the third dimension - like an installation of surround sound.

Music inspires me as an artist and art itself can be inspiration enough for my music. An example of this is a track I wrote about a bright yellow abstract landscape by Ruth le Cheminant.

As I stood before the painting, I said to Ruth "I can hear the music that describes this painting". Ruth of course, was intrigued to hear how her painting might sound. This track is titled Prelude to a Landscape and is track no 7 on the album "Portrait of a Waterfall.