See the Music

“See the Music” Art Show

Here are a few words about the “See the Music” art show June 1 – 26, 2005 by the Central Fraser Valley Graphic Guild at the Mission Art Centre Gallery. http://www.geocities.com/graphicguild/seethemusic.html

The title “See the Music” is a layered play on words that refers to the artistic visualizations of music--visible equivalents to the sound of music --and also to "seeing" in the metaphoric sense of understanding: to hear music more deeply than ever before, and say "yes, I see."

Music has the power to inspire and move us emotionally and we are often accompanied by music in our travels, in the car, or while working. We think of music as something we hear, rather than see, and yet the synthesis of music and art is not something new.

There has been a relationship between music and the visual arts ever since the first cave man painted an image of a drum on a rock wall. Throughout history, countless works of art have included musical instruments and artists and scientists have long been interested in the unique relationship of music with art and colour.

Sir Isaac Newton developed a system to show the relationships between colour and music. When he analyzed the coloured properties of sunlight, he divided the spectrum into seven colours, one for each note of a musical scale, thereby uniting the phenomena of light and sound into one mathematical matrix. His system has survived as a colour-music code and a guide to colour harmony, as well as a common way to describe the rainbow.

Kandinsky and Klee were both interested in painting music. Kandinsky was convinced that he could hear colors, associating them with specific instruments: yellow for the trumpet, orange for the viola, red for the tuba, etc. This ability is called synesthesia, which is a neurological condition in which there is difficulty in distinguishing between different sensory inputs so that for example, sounds are seen and words and aromas have color. I don’t think any of the artists in this show have this ability, --since it only affects 1 person out of 25,000.

In this show the artists attempted to visually illustrate the effect of music on themselves, whether by a depiction of musicians or with applying methods of music to the art, such as improvising and experimentation, rhythm, repetition, colour harmony, and tone and composition.

"See the Music” was in a way, an experiment--a place to begin, not the last word. It was our playful attempt to visually illustrate how music has made its mark and also endeavors to capture the full-spirited extravagance of joy characteristic in music. The music and the art lives on, even if the show has ended.