Thursday, January 27, 2011

Our name in music

I have created a tune based on the alpha characters of The Tin Shed Art Group.  I laid out the alphabet then assigned each letter a note based on the notes of the stave ie c,d,e,f,g,a,b and it is musically quite pleasant although I had to resolve it by adding two notes at the end.  I am thinking about making an art work based on this tune - just for fun.  I will bring my flute and play it to you on the 7th.

Peggy

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Pictures You Could Whistle

I have been surfing a little to explore the work of Wakelin and De Maistre, the Australian artists who developed  a system of "Colour-Music". 

From Wikipedia:  "In 1919 De Maistre held a joint exhibition with Roland Wakelin titled Colour in Art to expound his theories. In this, at the time controversial. art exhibition the musician-turned-painter had chosen colours to harmonise like the notes in music. This "colour-music" exhibition became part of Australia's art-folklore as "pictures you could whistle". Influenced by earlier exponents of "colour-music" theory in Europe and America, this exhibition has since been identified as the earliest experiment in pure abstractionism in Australia. His colour charts, showing musical notes corresponding to different hues, are now owned by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, with "colour music" gaining a permanent place in Australian art history. "

The best site I have found so far is at http://home.vicnet.net.au/~colmusic/maistre.htm

and there are some examples of De Maistre's work there.

 http://johnaslanidis.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Colour-in-Art-Revisiting-1919-The-evolution-of-colour-and-music-in-Australian-painting-22-August-27th-September-2008-.pdf  gives an overview of what happened after their exhibition and mentions more recent Aust artists who have explored the music-visual art connection.

I had not heard of that phrase "pictures you could whistle": maybe there is a suggestion there somewhere for some intriguing title for our own show!


Tim