James Young looks at "Honor Pythagoras, Per I-Per VI" by Alfred Jensen at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
The arts are all intrinsically linked to me. In fact, I'll go a step further and claim that most studies are interconnected and related. What is literature without history? Or, what is cooking without chemistry? And for me as a singer, what is vocal music without poetry? In Alfred Jensen's painting, shown above, he expresses the unity between mathematics and art. The geometric shapes stand out from each other by the use of bright yellow, green, red, blue and white color. These colors and shapes that make up our entire world.
Throughout time humans have looked to abstract creation to express complex feelings. Knowing visual art helps me to better know music. So often music is described like a painting: bright, red, thin, vivid, chromatic, dark, etc. I have heard devoted musicians in all seriousness describe music as being "blue". I don't mean sad, I mean the color blue. Blue as a concept is linked to a certain type of feeling in us. The same feeling that is activated by a series of tones or a certain sonic timbre.
This is one of the fundamental goals of all art: to connect people together through shared a feeling or experience. What have you heard in art or seen in music?
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