Visual Music

Have you ever closed your eyes while listening to your favorite song and have a certain image come to mind? Or maybe saw a painting that reminded you of a certain piece of music? Music and visual arts can often go hand in hand. Art historians and Critics have even been known to use music to help explain how one may approach visual art.

For instance, the book Visual Culture asks readers to use their approach to music and apply it to post-impressionist art to help them understand the art critic Roger Fry’s theories of art and form. The examples they give are a bit outdated to the modern reader, but we could apply this to modern music and art as well.

Take a look at this painting done by Ryan Hewett called Abstract View. We may not be able to understand the message behind the piece just by looking at it. That is why sometimes finding a song that the piece reminds us of can help us understand it better.

For Abstract View I find the song Control by Halsey catches its meaning fairly well. The emotions that the song invokes are very similar to those the painting does. A sense of loss and inner confusion. The abstract elements of this painting give it a mystical otherworldly feeling. Much like the way Control transports us, even just in the first few notes.

The cooler color used in the painting translates a more depressing effect. Though it is pleasant to look at, we know the topic it is attempting to convey is not pleasant by the feeling you get when you view it. Similarly, Halsey’s Control is pleasant to listen too, but by the tone of the singer’s voice and the instrumentals of the song, a depressing effect is given. We listen and view art like this because of its intense demonstration of deeper human emotion.

Abstract view also conveys a tormented soul with its texture and strokes. The pallet knife strokes towards the middle of where a face would be swirl in a circular motion. Paint is more heavily applied here, in rough jagged strokes. This giving it physical texture. From there paint looks like it has been added and then scraped away with the pallet knife in quick motions away from the body. These busy and textured strokes convey the loss of one’s self, confusion, an inner battle. Control conveys the same thing, whether that be through the tone of the song, the sound effects added throughout it, or how the longer it goes on it becomes more intense. It conveys the deterioration of a mind or soul.

This is just one example of how visual art and music can overlap. We may not always be aware of how different forms of art can work together to make a greater piece or help us understand greater meanings. When we do learn to blur the lines of media it opens the door for new ways of learning, and endless possibilities for art.

Image by Israel Palacio