Music and Paint

 According to Dow, the world of music is intertwined with the forms of art being produced. He mentions how a painting should resemble the rhythmic excellence of a brilliant piece of music in a few paragraphs across his book. 

What does that mean? Is a piece of painting supposed to be the same as a piece of music? 

 Well, that might be the initial understanding. However, music's significance in composition should be a moment of inspiration for a painter to create something with immaculate composition. One can clearly find a difference between what soothes the ears against what soothes the eyes. But the feeling might just be the same. 

In this O'Keefe painting, the premise was set that she had been inspired by one of Dow's classes and decided to paint something while listening to (and being under the influence of) music. 


Even if this painting was not under the influence of music, we can infer that it might have been. If we look at the boundaries of the heart formation, it gives the impression of rhythmic vibrations that are being spread across the canvas. The oozing out of paint from the green center shows us what O'Keefe might have been feeling during painting. It gives a sense of opening, a reveal that has come about due to the infusion of music, forming a boundary of love that has emerged from the flesh (the lower half of the canvas). The reason I call the heart foundation a boundary is because of the dark shades of red and black on the top of the canvas. 

So, this painting makes me think that painting allows one to access a sense of rhyme or a feeling that creates a harmony that originates from the soul itself. 

Comments

  1. Krishnan VenkateshNovember 27, 2022 at 7:29 PM

    Beautifully observant piece. Do you think the two kinds of rhythm are fundamentally the same, or analogous?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Shaheer Naveed December 4, 2022 at 8:55 PM

      Yes, that could be true. Dow thinks that musical composition should inspire an aspiring painter. It could be the same for a musician when they look at paintings. The main crux is a feeling of inspiration that comes about.

      Delete

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