Comments on: Painting with Music and About Music

By: Päivi

Päivi — Fri, 10 Dec 2021 09:02:05 +0000

In reply to Cheryl. Thanks so much, Cheryl! That's one of the most beautiful comments that I have got, so thank you!!

By: Päivi

Päivi — Fri, 10 Dec 2021 09:01:30 +0000

In reply to Lynne Braga (Louisa Ellingham).

Hi Louisa, I am so glad you enjoyed the post and your comments were most interesting. I have also played piano in my childhood but quit the lessons because we only had a small electric harmony and it was difficult to practice with it, then play the piano in the classroom. But I insisted to continue the theory lessons which I enjoyed a lot. Then I played violin for a few years.

I think you should allow music to come in your art, here are some thoughts on that:
a) Maybe it’s already there? Athmosphere, the style of the lines, the rhythm of the elements … Maybe you have already made music-inspired pieces!
b) Not one idea: Don’t push too hard with one idea, for example one music piece, but incorporate more ideas and let them get mixed. We often think too literally and loose the art in the process.

By: Cheryl

Cheryl — Thu, 09 Dec 2021 22:04:12 +0000

These 2 paintings melt my heart. In heaven I will be surrounded by your paintings.

By: Lynne Braga (Louisa Ellingham)

Lynne Braga (Louisa Ellingham) — Thu, 09 Dec 2021 21:06:58 +0000

Thanks Päivi, for another fascinating post!
Music has always been a part of my life (my Dad came from a musical family) especially the classics. I played the piano for a while when young, but refused to learn music theory. Of course, now I wish I had! My failure as a pianist was because of my impatience with the boring practice of chords and scales and also, the prescribed learning pieces. Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Chopin–the amazing music I heard on the radio–that is what I was yearning to play! Perhaps it would be wonderful to still be able to play a piano, but what I derive from listening to classical somehow must find a way into my artwork? I usually have such music during all my waking hours in the background. However, I’m very drawn to some kinds of jazz and the romantic ‘pop’ ballads of the 1950’s and 60’s and lots of movie scores. They don’t actually take second place to the classics, but are of a different nature and depend on mood.
Now, to get into artistic expression through music is such an exciting idea! I LOVE it that an artist can somehow combine art and music, having what we hear coming through design and colour in a painting, not abstractly, but in a very real sense– you mention “a concept or memory”. (We know of Kandinsky’s remarkable artistic friendship with the composer Arnold Schoenberg and how music is everywhere in Kandinsky’s work!) It’s something I’ve been wanting to try, but I seem to let other projects get in the way or think that, as with the piano, I’ll fail?
Usually Bach comes first when it comes to the classics, but I have heard some Ralph Vaughan Williams pieces recently (Christmas music) and find them absolutely mesmerizing. Also, I have learned that more recent compositions–outside the classical period–have their own irrepressible beauty. “Spiegel im Spiegel” by Arvo Pärt, comes to mind.
Well, seems I could go on all day about something that is so close to my heart–such an absorbing subject and one that I’d love to see accentuated more often.