Every portrait tells a story
Margaret Green, watercolour, 60 x 40cm.
This season appears to be one of portrait commissions. It’s a real privilege to be
entrusted with the image - in effect the life story of my subjects. Painted in
Amsterdam, this recent portrait shows a visionary musician, gazing into the
distance. In her mind’s eye she sees Kecskemét
(Hungary), where she had just completed her MA at the Kodály Pedagogical
Institute.
We can see that she
has the maturity of one who has wrestled with life for quite a few years, but the portrait also depicts a great newly discovered joy in her musical life. She
already played the piano, French Horn, and sang. And now she believes fervently
in the Kodály-inspired approach to music education and hopes to inject new life
into efforts to spread his philosophy in England. This portrait is an ode to
the sensitivity, strength and aspirations of this woman, surrounded by music.
Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967) was a Hungarian composer,
ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher, a friend and colleague
of the composer Béla Bartók. In the nineteen-thirties he embarked on a
long-term project to reform music teaching in Hungary's lower and middle
schools. His work resulted in the publication of several highly influential
books on a child-developmental approach to the experience
of music, that gradually spread internationally. The full story can easily be found on internet.
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