The Intersection of the Auditory and Visual Arts
For the everyday person, music is a hobby, a study tool, and even an escape. For visual artists, these musical identities can be harnessed, and sound can be transformed into a muse. This can be done in a variety of ways, utilizing music as background noise, encouragement, performance, or as a source of inspiration. In any of these methods, it can be seen, and felt, that music, the auditory arts, has long been a great accompaniment to the visual arts.
Music contains melodies, harmonies, verses, instrumentals, vocals and more, and visual artists, if they so chose, can find a vast array of inspiration within music’s components, which often serve as ignition for the imagination. Music, like many arts, has an ability to stir the mind and evoke imagery, transporting the listener to a new, or perhaps familiar place. However, given its subjectivity, music has a unique ability to convey a mood, which may also come from links to certain cultures. Due to this, it is with ease that artists of a more visual nature can tap into a song's tempo, tunes and rhythms, and decide if they wish to extend song into a more painted scene.
Artists have reached for auditory inspiration for many years. Keith Haring, an iconic artist and avid rap listener, would listen to his favorite rap, as well as hip-hop, house, and reggae music, while working, often painting strokes that followed the rhythms of this music. Artist Wassily Kandinsky, a pioneer of abstract art, also happened to play the violin, which would reflect in his works both visually, and in the names of some of his works.
Georgia O’Keeffe, best known for her portraits of flowers, was also heavily invested into abstract art. Having proudly announced her devotion to music as inspiration for these works, O’Keeffe has expressed that this inspiration comes from a realization that “music could be translated into something for the eye,” (okeeffemuseum.org).
One of the recent pieces on display in the Main Gallery of the Downriver Council for the Arts encourages this point, displaying an abstract piece entitled, “What Music Looks Like” by artist Diane Moyer.
“What music looks like“ by Diane moyer
It is important to note that this inspiration is not a one-way street. While artists can discover new lines, shapes and color patterns through music, musicians often draw their inspiration from the brushstrokes and imagery and moods of visual art works. Some of Claude Debussy’s most well known pieces, the Nocturnes, were inspired by the works of art by James McNeil Whistler, also entitled Nocturnes.
These visual works are impressionistic, night-time, landscape scenes, which can only be complimented by Debussy’s musical rendering.
“Nocturne in black and gold“ by James Mcneil Whistler
While art inspires new auditory works to be made, preexisting music and preexisting visual works can be paired to highlight new perspectives, or perhaps strengthen the perspectives more readily seen. This sort of pairing is most common in gallery or exhibition settings, when what is on display can benefit from a bit of background noise. For example, works from the Baroque, Rococo, and even Neoclassical periods would portray their faces more vividly when accompanied by classical music, and a Keith Haring exhibition would perhaps be showcased upon a background of house music.
Overall, when it comes to gallery settings, as well as for an artist's curation and creative process, blending the auditory and visual arts helps to create a space of total immersion, a space where boundaries are pushed and “mixed media” takes on an entirely new meaning.
