How Music and Abstract Paintings Interact

by Alex Fabelli Artist and Designer

Music is a traditional metaphor for other art forms, and one to which poetry in particular is often compared. But among the visual arts, abstract painting is most often described as comparable to music, due to its non-representational structure. Music can be understood as an embodied form of knowledge both to performers and to listeners, one that cannot be cogently passed along using words alone, just as abstract art lacks a nameable subject.

In fact, the "pure" painters like Kandinsky and Mondrian spoke up against taking this comparison too literally. They argued that the relationship between music and painting is a meaningful one, but that tonality and color use affect audiences in ways that are better understood as parallel modes of expression. Hence they were more likely to use musical metaphors for their ideas than to argue for a systematic way of equating a painter's process with a composer's.

For instance, Kandinsky famously said: "Color directly influences the soul. Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, and the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another purposively, to cause vibrations in the soul." In this he was echoing centuries of aesthetic theory that employ the music of the spheres as a metaphor for a discernible cosmic order in which humans are naturally able to find their own place.

But abstract painting emerged at a time when radical changes were taking place in the musical arts as well, and it was tempting to compare experiments with atonality and polytonality with the abstraction of color, line and shape from figures in abstract canvas art. The 20th century's shocking wars influenced artists in all media to experiment with dissonance and with ways of transcending traditional ideas about social order, and 12-tone music like Schoenberg's appealed to both projects.

In visual art, rhythm is often recognized through geometrical permutations, similar to the source of natural beauty in the Fibonacci series, or in energy balances governed by the organizing dynamics of attraction and repulsion, centripetal or centrifugal force. Perspective and proportion create visual harmony or dissonance in abstract painting.

Writing to composer Arnold Schoenberg, Kandinsky shared his thoughts on harmonic form: "I am certain that our own modern harmony is not to be found in the 'geometric' way, but rather in the anti-geometric, anti-logical way. And this way is that of 'dissonances in art', in painting, therefore, just as much as in music. And 'today's' dissonance in painting and music is merely the consonance of 'tomorrow'."

Other abstract artists have also influenced 20th century musicians. Merce Cunningham's modern dance production Walkaround Time drew on painter Marcel Duchamp's work in sculpture as inspiration for set design. Composer John Cage, whose work is part of the production, said: "one way to write music: study Duchamp."

Rainer Maria Rilke once said of Paul Klee's paintings, "Even if you hadn't told me he plays the violin, I would have guessed that on many occasions his drawings were transcriptions of music." Klee was a member of Der Blaue Reiter group, along with Franz Marc and Kandinsky. He also taught at Bauhaus on book binding, stained glass and mural painting.

His abstract canvas art often uses letters, numbers, arrows and geometric forms to develop visual rhythm and harmony. Klee's Red Balloon at the Guggenheim geometrically describes a palette in small angular figures opening around an orb like a street view of a flying balloon, surrounded with blue shaded negative space. Here a sense of minimalism gives the painting a poetic quality, more like a song than a symphony in form.

Alex Fabelli owns Fabelli Group, a wall art producer and supplier. Ten years ago, Alex started working with artists of abstract art paintings from all over the world, producing original paintings and Giclee designs for home furniture retailers and galleries, and tailor made art for hospitality projects like hotels, spas as well as other commercial properties.

Sponsor Ads

• Ad Space Available - Rent it Now!

Created on Dec 31st 1969 18:00. Viewed 0 times.

Comments