When music meets art.

Two similar disciplines

So, today I Will be talking about some of the common aspects that music and arts have
always shared, specially since the Impresionism period. To do this we Will see more generally
how this two fields are initially developed as individual lines, but seting at the same time a similar
language, with the purpouse of comparing some of them in the context of the mencioned period.

“Arts learn from each other and their aims are sometimes the same”-kandinsky

With this phrase in mind, we can say it is a fact that both disciplines born and progress
over the years representing or at least reflecting social and historical changes. Following different
techniques and expression ways that challenged the previous ones is what stablished what we call
new genres or styles..

First of all, it is evident that music and arts are different things. It’s obvious that they take
place in two different senses. I mean: we hear music vs we see a painting. Then is the imaginative
part where you can feel like you see trees and raindrops falling in a Debussy prelude, or even
listening to a Melody in an abstract painting, but that is more elaborated.

Moreover, they manage the element of time in opposite ways. In music, time is an
essential component , as we we perform/play a piece in an exact time, because of the number of
bars, measures, tempo indication, and figures that represent half, doble or a triple duration.

By contrast, this aspect has no role in a painting work. Even if it requires the same or
more hours of working till it is done and finished, it has been proved that we can mostly appreciate
the general details and elements of a picture/artword in less than 1 minute. Obviously, decoding
deeper things take much more time.

On the other hand, it is so interesting how a lot of the terms or technicisms that artists
and musician get familiarized with, are exactly the same , besides they originallybelong to one
of the disciplnes (visual family)

-Color

-Sound- bright/dark/vibrant/Deep/small/big/light. We feel the hearing family steals from

the visual family

-movement-energetic/dynamic/static/rythmic. We feel like the visual family steals from the

hearing family

-Articulation-clear/shaping/hard/Sharp

-Structure-symmetry/texture
-expression-intimate/optimist/joyful

-consonance/dissonance

With this, we can easily associate compositional devices to pieces like the 4 seasons of
vivaldi or the pastoral symphony of Beethoven, where it is now evident that the musical content
tries to ilustrate something real. Its a description.

Although Romanticism is full of examples where composers describe nature, history, and
literature poems, the connoection between the disciplines is no more than the association of the
topics. We really find the key point in Impresionism when music, begins to imitate in addition to
describe, the own language of the topics, and more specifically: the nature topic.

IMPRESIONISM

Now, finally talking about impresionism, Debussy believed that music, unlike plastic arts,
has the power of unify/consolidate color and light variations in one single aspecto. As an artistic
movement that appear shortly before it gets to music, impresionists paintings start worriyng about
the fleetingness of time by using what is called as loose Paint-stroke (pincelada suelta), blurred
shapes and splashes of colour, instead of realistic imitation of reality

In the same way, impresionist music stablish freer tempos and rubatos, Greek modes,
exotic escales, and the most important thing, the search of nuew sounds or tunes, as we see in the
Cathédrale Engloutie de Debussy.

So, many important authors tried to explain this analogy, between arts and music elements
in the Impresionism language, and the most standardized one is this one.

Harmony Space

Tonality Perspective

Consonance-Dissonance Chiaroscuro

Form against Clasicism and Romanticism Form against a realistic treatment

Melody Contour

Tempo Patterns. Pointillism

 So, if we read this chart, we could easily recognised any impresionist creation, no
matter if its musical o graffic.

Harmony would be connected to spatial dimensión

Tonality goes hand in hand with perspective (both get diffused-examplegauguin)

The consonance or dissonance aspect comparable to the chiaroscuro (as the perfect balance of
constrat between light and darkness) , where the dissonance become more interesting, as well as
the shadow, created by all kind of colors except Fromm black.

The revolutionary form against clasicism and Romanticism, besides its usuallly said that
Debussy pieces doesnt have form, in the same way pintors rejected the Academic idea of a
realistic treatment.

About Melody, it becomes secondary, given priority to the other elements, which
explains the loose Paint-stroke we mencioned before. So a cantábile line is no longer the main
character as well as there is not a well delimited contour. It is segmented (Fig.22-Un día de
verano, de B. Morisot,), while the tune (timbre) is the real content of the piece, as well as the
color.

Finally, the tempo is connectet to the rythm and movement of the picture. In general If a
pattern is repeated several times the painting wil automatically become more rythmic

To conclude, id like to encorauge you all to investigate and get to know better the
conection between disciplines, because in the end i have seen that it benefits us as musicians
and make us even understand better our language.