“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.
Controversy frequently surrounded Gustav Klimt‘s paintings, but he was not a rebellious individual. He did cultivate a certain coarseness of manner primarily as a defense against unwanted curiosity, and he went to considerable lengths to protect his inner world from
The dashing American bad boy of music George Antheil (1900-1959) was a child prodigy. He dropped out of school and left for Europe. In no time he rubbed shoulders with Ezra Pound and James Joyce, made friends with Gertrude Stein
In West Malling, Kent, there’s a statue of a woman, Hope by Sara Cunnington. The woman strides forward, a dove in her hand about to launch out into the world. Hope’s cloak, streaming behind her, is patterned with panels that
Mexican composer Carlos Sanchez-Guttierrez (b. 1964), who now teaches at the Eastman School of Music, created his work …Ex Machina in 2008 as a work for marimba, piano, and symphony orchestra. He was inspired by different artworks, mostly by the
I had long believed that the poems most frequently set to music came from the pen of Goethe, Schiller, Heine, Whitman, or Verlaine. In reality, however, that particular honour probably belongs to the American poet Emily Dickinson. In 1992 a
While Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s (1844-1908) symphonic works remain extremely popular, his art songs, commonly termed “Romances,” are largely unknown and unfairly neglected. An integral part of Russian culture, the “Romance” indicated an intimate lyrical genre that was supposed to “touch the
Johann Paul Friedrich Richter (1763-1825), much better known under his penname “Jean Paul,” was one of the most prolific and prominent writers of his generation. Owing to the structural and linguistic idiosyncrasies of his writings, he was heavily criticized in
Alfons Karl Zwicker: Vom Klang der Bilder In his cycle for large orchestra and solo piano, Of the Sound of Pictures (Von Klang der Bilder), the Swiss composer, pianist, and painter Alfons Karl Zwicker (b. 1952) chose 5 modern artists:
