Music and space in watercolour painting

Music and space in watercolour painting

I’ve been listening to violinist Daniel Hope's recent album Spheres, inspired by the idea, first brought forward by Pythagoras, that the movements of the planets create their own kind of music, bringing beauty, harmony and simplicity to our complex solar system. Spheres takes us out of this world.  If there are sounds eternally resonating in space, could it be, that as each of my brushstrokes create an energy field, they also make a tiny contribution to an infinite kaleidoscope of colours in our cosmos?

My late friend Yehudi Menuhin seemed to imply this when he was about to unveil one of my paintings at Birmingham Symphony Hall. With his hand ready to pull on the curtain-cord, he said: “Now, let’s all focus on this moment – the world will never be the same again”.

Composer Toru Takemitsu used to say: “silence has energy”. You could say the same about what is often called negative space in a painting: the space in between things. But that space is not just “nothing” – it’s full of energy. Every pencil line, every brushstroke ignites a field of energy in the adjacent empty spaces apparently “left over”. In fact this space can be deliberately arranged as breathing space. Breathing creates energy. An artist composes with space, as a composer arranges silence between the notes. Without this, the graphic marks would lack beauty or character. Sometimes it’s the space that has the major role, balancing the minimal marks or strokes within the frame.

Here are two watercolours painted in the quiet landscape  of Burgundy in 1984. There I attempted to select the essential features and stretch them across space, like phrases of music. As I moved my brush, I was aware of both the brushstroke and the space through which it was moving. Just as a musician simultaneously listens to the note he is playing and the effect it has in relation to the whole piece. 

Can you hear the slightly rasping sound of the shakuhachi flute, as the brush drags across the paper, lifting occasionally with a slight pause between the strokes? Can you feel the flow of time? And can you taste the Chablis, cultivated for years in this ochre/rose soil? 

Does all this sound familiar? Here’s the link to my blog from 9th April 2012: The beauty of space and silence.

Takemitsu drew much musical inspiration from the slowly changing audio-visual nature of gardens, rocks, rain, water and birds. He transforms his sources into haunting, whimsical or dramatic sounds, leaving us with a nostalgic realisation of the passing of time. In 2004 I made continuous kinetic paintings in a performance with the Rotterdam Philharmonic of one of Takemitsu’s masterpieces From me flows what you call Time (commissioned in 1990 for the centenary of Carnegie Hall). As it happens, I’m writing this in New York, in the shadow of this great concert hall, full of the vibes of legendary concerts. How wonderful it would be, to recreate this performance in the Hall for which it was written.

Here’s a still from “From me flows what you call Time”, a page in the score that Takemitsu entitles “Curved Horizon”. But he labels the next page "Mirage". In my performance, one space transmorphs into another.

And here's the link to my studio practice session for that 2004 performance.

Just sit and watch the visual music.

Just sit and watch the visual music.

The author of On an Overgrown Path has been discussing the current head-scratching on ways to attract a new younger public to classical music. One tried and tested Zen option is quite simple. Invite them to just sit and listen. I would re-phrase that. By means of a video-clip, invite them to sit, listen and watch the visual music. I'll come back to this later. Just looking at the perspective, calm water and colour of Bob's header image makes you want to sit and experience this stillness, even without any music. After only five seconds you'll feel better. Try it here.

Concert halls are not the only places to find a sanctuary for inner peace, as a refuge from the urban stress of our increasingly fragmented world (to paraphrase Jane Moss of the white light festival). Many old factories or warehouses are now being put to use as smaller concert venues or "clubs" for classical music. The Amsterdam Yellow Lounge concept is just one example. You could moan about this being a promotional tool of Universal Music, but young people flock there for the atmosphere. With a drink in their hand, they will lounge or stand for ages, totally focussed on the music, quiet as mice, except for the accidental shattering of a beer glass occasionally. 

In such an informal atmosphere it's so natural to offer a few words of introduction before each piece. Young people love this contact with the real person behind the instrument. Daniel Hope does this well, Pekka Kuusisto adds a quirky sense of humour, even the intellectual Pierre-Laurent Aimard turns out to be warm, humorous and so happy to share gems of information. This routine could be one of the keys to the engagement of a new audience. But the quality of the music and the passion with which it's played is not compromised. It's the real thing, demands full attention and gets it.

A few words on live kinetic painting with Pierre-Laurent Aimard at the Yellow Lounge.

Young people have grown up in a world of visual attractions of all sorts, from MTV to YouTube and much more. A new track in pop music is inconceivable without visuals. Yet despite hints from Wagner, Scriabin, Kandinsky, Walt Disney, Simon Rattle, Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Bob Singleton, classical music programmers have been slow to employ this obvious "hook". When they do, many video-projections fail to fully integrate or harmonise with the music, as a visual counterpoint.

From Sofia Gubaidulina’s Garden of Joys and Sorrows. Image the musicians sitting in the green centre.

Audiences (young and old) tell me that my live kinetic painting to music transports them into another world. Because my visuals are conceived with the score and follow it closely, they feel that they can see the music. I'm offering them an added insight, in addition to the aural perception. The kinetic painting is abstract enough to allow the imagination to roam and there's something about the flow of the water-colours with the music that draws you in and provokes a visceral reaction. You feel it in your guts. They come away enlightened, back from that other world where they find inner peace, recharged with dopamine from a Gesamtkunst experience. With these audio-visual performances, sitting or standing still for a long time is not a problem. Does this sound like PR blurb? Well, ask any of them. Here’s one comment:

"I was aware of the quiet concentration of the other spectators. Very quiet, but in a natural way, not an imposed silenced. The colours, the rhythm, the world and atmosphere that you conjured up were so powerfully absorbing, that I found myself drawn into a timeless state. Time and space ceased to exist - just colour, shapes, movement and music as one whole. As I watched, I found myself becoming part of what I was watching - perhaps it sounds silly, but I felt part of a greater Oneness."

Takemitsu’s Black Rain, performed in Korea with the Sejong string ensemble in 2007 on August 6th, the anniversary of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Imagine the “shock waves” of paint, slowly spreading outwards over the desolation of the city. The red Japanese flag turns white in an awful silence.

This synergy of painting and music may help us to fulfill a basic need: to slow....down and cherish the moment. Try watching the video below, full screen. This music may not be to your taste and it may be a challenge to sit still for eight minutes, but let's just run this test. Focus on the screen. Turn the sound up (the first two minutes are barely audible). In this case there's no real painting, simply organized flow. This is about as slow as you can make it. If your coffee gets cold, I've made my point! (Go to YouTube for other, more dynamic examples).

 Meditation on the beginning of Górecki's Symphony no.3 (Sorrowful Songs). A lament on the tragedy of a mother's loss of her child and of a child separated from her mother in a Gestapo prison cell.

London Sinfonietta. Conductor David Zinman.