“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.
Inspiration Behind James Matheson’s Windows If you seek out the Union Church of Pocantico Hills in New York’s Hudson Valley, you’ll find a little gem. From the outside, it looks like a simple stone country church. When you get inside,
In part one of this article, we considered the complexities of the relationship between music and literature. As sensitive, art-loving souls, many authors hold a close connection to music and wish to bring this to their works of fiction. This
Adam Schoenberg’s Picture Studies In a modern version of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, where he walks around an exhibition of his friend Viktor Hartmann’s paintings, American composer Adam Schoenberg (b. 1980) created his own tour around the Nelson-Atkins Museum
Sergey Akhunov’s Jazz Inspired by Henri Matisse In 1941, Henri Matisse (1869–1954) had abdominal surgery and afterwards was confined to a bed or a chair. With his limited mobility, painting and sculpting were out of the question; however, he still
Of all the senses one can attempt to evoke by means of the written word, sound may be the most complex. Words can easily call to the mind’s eye, landscapes, facial expressions, and all things visual. Taste, touch, and even
Musical Interpretations of Henri Matisse’s La Tristesse du roi When we think of self-portraits, we think of images of the artist at work, canvas in front of him, brushes in hand, done at a strange angle so the artist could
Inspirations Behind Anna Clyne’s Abstractions The suite Abstractions (2016) uses the works of five contemporary abstract artists to create an image of art today. The works were all in the collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art and came from
Jackson Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm Inspires Composer Camille Pépin American artist Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) created Autumn Rhythm (Number 30) in his studio in Springs, New York, working with an unprimed canvas on the ground while he poured and scattered paint on
