Recordings/Discussions
Background Information
Performer Bios

Poet/Composer Bios

Additional Information

Bach in Arts & Memorabilia: Main Page | Index by Type/Number
Bach in Arts: Portraits | Statues, Monuments, Memorials & Plaques | Hommage a Bach | Posters & Graphic Art | Busts, Figurines & Statuettes | Postcards & Greeting Cards | Caricatures & Cartoons | Stamps & Envelopes | Medals, Medallions & Coins | Pottery, Ceramics & Glass | Seals, Signatures & Monograms | Festival Posters | Musical nstruments & Music Boxes | Video Art
Bach Memorabilia: Home: Clocks | Mugs, Cups & Steins | Magnets | Pillows | Towels | Yard Signs | Boxes & Cases | Smoking Objects | Playing Cards | Toys & Dolls | Sweets
Office: Calendars & Catalogues | Pens, Pencils & Erasers | Bookmarks | Stickers | Mousepads | Telecards | Accessories
Dress: Shirts | Shorts | Hats | Ties, Handkerchiefs & Scarves | Buttons & Pins | Jewelry, Ornaments & Watches | Keychains | Umbrellas & Fans | Bags | Costumes & Wigs | Thimbles
Discussions: Bach Memorabilia | Face of Bach


Bach Memorabilia

Memo-2824

Type:

Bach Painting (Hommage a Bach)

Title:

Bach Brandenburg Concerto No 6

Description:

Oils on Hardboard.
This painting was inspired by Bach's brandenburg concerto no 6. Nobody can deny, that music can be written down, because the existence of sheet music proves that it can, but the question is-----Can it be written down in a different way using colours to reveal what lies at the heart of the music ? It is worth mentioning that composers such as Scriabin, Rimsky Korsakov,and Sibelius felt that individual notes had definite colours.(see note on color-music)

Measures:

* 4 feet x 4 feet
* Unframed, Signed on the back

Creator:

Artist: Gearoid Edmonds
Seller: Irish Music Painter

Buy item at:

See Source/Links below.

Comments:

About the Artist:
GEAROID EDMONDS born 1957 in Limerick, Ireland, I was painting from an early age, studied classical violin from the age of twelve and I still practice and play to this day. In order to develop my left hand dexterity, I began to write with my left hand. This led to my writing with both hands simultaneously, and then to my painting with both hands simultaneously and finally to my painting what various pieces of music (symphonies concertos etc.)suggest to my imagination. I also make semi-abstract paintings using this technique, which are not consciously related to music Over the past twenty years I have painted approximately one hundred paintings inspired by classical music compositions and because I have not been exhibiting I now possess a large collection.

On My Methods of Painting Music:
Over many years, I have developed a unique way of painting using both my left and right hands with multiple brushes in each hand. I use the colors suggested to me by the music in an attempt to reveal what lies in the heart of music compositions in my paintings. While musical notes suggest colors to me, it should be remarked that the same note played on different instruments (e.g. piano and trumpet) may suggest a different colour to me, and therefore one cannot say that in every musical composition I perceive a given note, for example C, as always being white (as perceived by the composer Rimsky Korsakov) or always being red (per the composers Scriabin and Sibelius). And, unlike a composer, I as an artist am not constrained to using two colors (the composer writes all his notes black on a white page). Nor do I have to write all notes on a set of five lines called a stave, making every note an identical size. Why use two hands?--Well how many people play chords on the piano with one hand?
To explain the logic behind my method of holding groups of brushes loaded with different colors in both hands while painting music, it may be helpful to consider an example. Let us select a sequence of two chords and assign colors to the individual notes. Suppose the first chord is Cmajor, notes CEG (played with the left hand) and notes GCE (played with the right hand), while the second chord is Gmajor GDG (left hand) and GBD (right hand). Let us suppose C suggests white, G green, E red, D yellow and B orange. Now I would paint these two chords as follows; the first chord, with white-green-white loaded brushes in my left hand and green-white-red brushes in my right hand; and the second chord, with green-yellow-green in my left hand and with green-orange-yellow in my right hand. I use a cassette player while I paint the music. This allows me to pause the recording whenever I need to change brushes or mix paint.
Obviously I paint what a piece of music suggests to my own imagination. It is worth noting that the perceived association of musical notes and chords with particular colors can vary from one individual to another. For example (text from WikiPedia), “in his autobiographical Recollections, Sergei Rachmaninoff recorded a conversation he had had with Scriabin and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov about Scriabin's association of color and music. Rachmaninoff was surprised to find that Rimsky-Korsakov agreed with Scriabin on associations of musical keys with colors; himself skeptical, Rachmaninoff made the obvious objection that the two composers did not always agree on the colors involved. Both maintained that the key of D major was golden-brown; but Scriabin linked E-flat major with red-purple, while Rimsky-Korsakov favored blue. However, Rimsky-Korsakov protested that a passage in Rachmaninoff's opera The Miserly Knight supported their view: the scene in which the Old Baron opens treasure chests to reveal gold and jewels glittering in torchlight is written in D major. Scriabin told Rachmaninoff that "your intuition has unconsciously followed the laws whose very existence you have tried to deny."
My music paintings are created painstakingly with meticulous attention to detail. Though somewhat abstract none of the work is the result of chance. Each color is inspired by the notes and chords of the subject piece of music. Each brush stroke is deliberate; the resulting shapes and patterns being inspired by the melody. It takes months of work to complete one of these paintings. Just as a daffodil has a different structure from a rose every piece of music has its own form and shape. I believe I can reveal this side of music in my paintings.

On “Color-Music” a historical note:
The connection between color and music dates back at least as far as Aristotle who wrote about it as early as the fourth century B.C. In the 17th century, Newton in his work “Opticks” compared the colors of the prism to the notes of a musical scale. He illustrated his concept of colour music with a diagram in his famous work "Hypothesis explaining the Properties of Light". In the 18th century, Louis Bertrand Castel proposed the construction of a light-organ, which would simultaneously produce both sound and the associated color for each note. Others, including D.D. Jameson, Bainbridge Bishop, and A. Wallace Rimington, created such color organs through the next century. In the 20th century, in his autobiographical “Recollections”, Sergei Rachmaninoff recorded a conversation between fellow Russian composers Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov about their differing schemes for the association of musical keys with particular colors. Alexander Scriabin invented a “keyboard of light”, with notes corresponding to colors, and had it constructed for the performance of his work “Prometheus: Poem of Fire” in New York in 1915. In 1925, Hungarian composer Alexander Laszlo wrote a text called Color-Light-Music and toured Europe with a color organ. Painters too, such as Kupka, Van Doesburg, Russolo, the Delauneys, Klein, Rimington and Grant, were transferring musical ideas to colors on canvas. Artists like Roy De Maistre were creating color music paintings. People like Walther Ruttmann and Oskar Fischinger were pioneering visual music works, many of which were highly abstract animated pieces to live musical accompaniment.

Source/Links: eBay.co.uk
Contributor:
Teddy Kaufman (March 2008)


Bach in Arts & Memorabilia: Main Page | Index by Type/Number
Bach in Arts: Portraits | Statues, Monuments, Memorials & Plaques | Hommage a Bach | Posters & Graphic Art | Busts, Figurines & Statuettes | Postcards & Greeting Cards | Caricatures & Cartoons | Stamps & Envelopes | Medals, Medallions & Coins | Pottery, Ceramics & Glass | Seals, Signatures & Monograms | Festival Posters | Musical nstruments & Music Boxes | Video Art
Bach Memorabilia: Home: Clocks | Mugs, Cups & Steins | Magnets | Pillows | Towels | Yard Signs | Boxes & Cases | Smoking Objects | Playing Cards | Toys & Dolls | Sweets
Office: Calendars & Catalogues | Pens, Pencils & Erasers | Bookmarks | Stickers | Mousepads | Telecards | Accessories
Dress: Shirts | Shorts | Hats | Ties, Handkerchiefs & Scarves | Buttons & Pins | Jewelry, Ornaments & Watches | Keychains | Umbrellas & Fans | Bags | Costumes & Wigs | Thimbles
Discussions: Bach Memorabilia | Face of Bach




 

Back to the Top


Last update: Wednesday, June 14, 2017 02:43