On Musicians
My art has always been about people, from my earliest days as an artist to the present time I have tried to catch a glimpse, an attitude or personality of the subject. This persistent interest in people has served to color my art. I also love the city with its colorful signs, cafes and shop windows. The wonderful street musicians are one of my favorite themes ; their melodious and rhythmic arrangements lighten our steps and create harmony in an often too stressful urban environment. I am posting several of my paintings of Montreal musicians; these form a part of an ongoing series on street performers.Historically, the visual arts, especially abstract art, has been associated with music. This was discussed by the Russian painter and one of the earliest abstractionists, Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944). He is said to have had synaesthesia, where colors trigger particular musical notes. He wanted to evoke sound through sight and to create the painterly equivalent of a symphony (1911). (London Telegraph, 2006).
Hans Hofmann, the German-American abstract artist (1880-1966), stated that: " Color is a plastic means of creating intervals, color harmonics produced by special relationships or tensions". (Wikipedia online).
The much acclaimed French painter, Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863), in his "Journals" spoke of colors as "the music of the eyes; they combine like sounds...certain color harmonies produce sensations that even music cannot achieve." (from Marcia Tucker, 1971; exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art). The following are my paintings of musicians:
Oil on canvas, 14"X18"