“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.
“Painting can be a conversation with oneself and, at the same time, it can be a conversation with other paintings” (Jasper Johns, 1989) In this second of two articles I will briefly return to the relationship between Edvard Munch, the
Explore Vaughan Williams’ Song Cycles and English Song Settings The preeminent British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) set the model for composers of British songs in the 20th century: he composed several song cycles, setting lyrics by great authors and
French Chansons Composed by Ernest Chausson French composer Ernest Chausson’s early death in a bicycle accident cut short a career just as it was beginning to flourish. His position as secretary of the Société Nationale de Musique for 13 years
Many aspects about the life of John Dowland (1563-1626) remain a mystery – his biography is full of ‘it is generally thought…’. It is generally thought he was born in London but one historian also claims an Irish source for
The Austrian writer Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) was one of the most famous international authors in the 1920s and 1930s, but the advent of National Socialism in Germany caused the author to flee to New York and from there to Brazil,
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) set a distinctive poem by Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) in 1895, but it didn’t appear in print until 1953, some 16 years after his death. Un grand sommeil noir from Verlaine’s collection Sagesse, is a remarkably morbid poem
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) was regarded in the early 20th century as France’s greatest living composer. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire but his time there ended badly. He entered as a piano student at age 14 but by age 18,
Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) set relatively little vocal music and the most well-known of his vocal setting is of a set of 7 anonymous popular songs from different regions of Spain: Murcia, Aragon, the north of Spain, the Moorish south,
