Art Blog - Art & Aesthetics

In the realm of aesthetics, music spans the gap between matter and metaphysics. Music is an aesthetic model for all forms of art.

Music is all math and vibes. It doesn’t inform us like words or pictures do. Its “language” is a balancing act of sound and silence based on syntax not semantics. Tones have no meaning but it’s their relations to each other - the differences between them – of which music is made. Music and art aesthetics are independent of the physical world. Beethoven was stone deaf when he wrote his Ninth.

Absolute music doesn’t tell stories but it evokes feelings. If I’m moved by a good guitar solo, it’s not just due to modes and moods, sympathy or empathy, but by the genius of the artist – the sense that he or she has captured lightning in a bottle. Sure, I can relate to simple harmonic structure too; aesthetics are the natural resonant frequency from which one cops a buzz. My life is an Am7 (A minor seventh chord). Books, poems, and films can move me too, but a painting hanging silently on the wall can bowl me over just as well. That’s the kind of power that has made aesthetics a propaganda tool for commercial and political ends. Forget “branding” for now. Aesthetics are indifferent to context but not ulterior motives. Of course clichés exist in music and art, from the “shave and a haircut, two bits” musical cadence to that icon of corporate culture - the ubiquitous “let’s make a deal” handshake image. Put 'er there, partner.

Musical tones and colors aren’t like words, but they could be. The crude melody uttered in “nuh-uh” means “no” and in “woo-hoo” means “yes!” Stories are told with voice inflections and facial tics: physiognomy. Visually, red means stop and green means go (or port and starboard) and “code blue” means “step on it.” O.K., that’s a metaphor, but verbal language is more nuanced, and eidetic (visual) thinking is more direct in its representations. In music there is no encoded message, just pattern recognition and its appreciation, assuming it’s played by a musician, not a plumber.

A musical scale is not an alphabet per se. Letters are specific to words but tones are only relative to a melody. If every note of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star is transposed up or down by one musical step, the tune still sounds the same, but if you bumped each letter in the alphabet up a notch, the phrase “see what I mean?” would read “tff xibu J nfbo?” Then again, the Fauvists painted wildly colorful, if unnatural, portraits to great effect by jazzing up their palettes.

Music represents nothing but itself. It exists in the time and space between its notes, which means it’s made out of nothing; it is defined by what it is not. This makes it a paradigm for aesthetic value in the arts. Its logical structure - the scales, intervals, and dynamics - have parallels in visual composition. A symphony is like a novel or master painting and a simple tune is a poem or pencil sketch. Birdsongs are something else, but I like them too.

There is beauty in math. A chord built on the fifth tone of the musical scale (called the dominant) has the lowest ratio of 2:3 to the tonic key at 1:1 which makes it pleasant to the ear. The subdominant chord has the next lowest ratio of 4:3. Thus “three-chord” rock and blues is basic to orchestral music as well in Western civilization. In art and architecture, the Golden Mean proportion plays a similar role in visual harmony.

I liken musical chord progressions to the figure and ground in painting - the basic configuration. If it’s easy to discern, the viewer will “get it.” Harmony has a sense of gravity while lines and contours are like the melody in a drawing. The dynamic range (pianoforte) makes for dramatic lighting in a painting as well as perspective – hearing a soft sound is like seeing through the haze. Rhythm suggests pattern and gesture, the bump and grind in a picture whether representational or abstract, cha-cha-cha. Instrumentation and phrasing lend texture and style to the plastic arts. Dissonance in music or art can be comic, tragic, or just plain annoying.

When we hear the four-part counterpoint of a Bach fugue, it is actually a single chord at any given moment in time. In painting, we likewise splice visual cues into a cohesive whole. An artist adjusts each color segment of various flesh tones to convey the streaks of a shadow on face and forms, or combines the reflections of treetops above, and a catfish beneath the surface of the water on which autumn leaves float – a triple whammy to achieve an illusion of singularity across the picture plane (à la M. C. Escher).

God is in the details – a grace note or a glint of light. Aesthetics boil particulars down to generalities – sentiment without referent. The artist makes it look easy, not just convincing, so that the observer might not see the forest for the trees. For “good” art, the artist becomes unconscious, guided by an intuition that informs the hand and mind when he or she is in the zone. It’s a coordinated effort for a painter to achieve color, line, and volume like a drummer gets all four limbs to do their separate things to the same beat – kick, snare, ride, and crash. That reminds me of a funny quip by comedian Stephen Wright:

“I wrote a song, but I can’t read music, so every time I hear a new song on the radio I think—‘Gee, maybe I wrote that song.’”

The extrasensory aspect baked into a work of art will elicit empathy from the attuned viewer which affects a reaction in the brain (prefrontal cortex, meet hypothalamus) that feels like a supernatural event. It’s like learning a foreign language when, for the first time, you hear or speak it without “doing the math” in your head – actually thinking and comprehending directly in that language without interpretation. Vous comprenez?

A human being, like a work of art, is a process and one’s identity depends on the continuity of that process. Art is a reflection of history and culture of its time and one must account for the conventions of a given period, but just like the abstract properties of music combine to make a whole beyond any objective purpose, a visual image transcends the surface through “intellectual intuition,” as Immanuel Kant would say. It’s phenomenological: creative thinking at its best - really “out of the box.” The art aesthetic brings our conscious reflection into harmony with the modern world much like mythology did for the ancients. It’s the spirituality behind a simulacrum. Art says what can’t be said.
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COMMENTS

 

1

  Gary Peterson ( homepage )

11/29/2008 * 09:01:35

Howdy Peter,

Sorry, I was asleep at the switch. Your comments on musichitecture are most cogent. As for "visceral," one musician in particular comes to my mind: Evelyn Glennie, the deaf percussionist who feels the sound and creates fantastic music. I also have conceptualized a guitar-chair inside of which the player sits for full resonant experience. Alas - though I have built scores of acoustic guitars - this design has yet to be executed.

Meanwhile, guys, I'm up for the card swap but I just haven't gotten around to it. I'm going to the supply store today. More later.

 

2

  Peter Barnett

11/23/2008 * 09:52:07

Hi guys,

I enjoyed this post very much, and also the comments. I could be in for a postcard swap myself.

Two comments. I have had a ong involvement in architecture as well as painting - almost ended up as an architect - and traditionally it is that branch of the arts that has been most often compared to music ("architecture is frozen music"), precisely because of the strong mathematical and spatial elements of both. I think the same kind of mind obsesses on the possibilities of rhythm, cadence, tempo,etc.

However, my second comment would be that the mathematical basis of music is only one, and maybe not the greatest, part of its magic. For me, music is VISCERAL. It is the most immeditae of the arts because it resonates inside us before we even address it intellectually in any way.

 

3

  Michael Mize ( homepage )

11/20/2008 * 10:14:07

I'd love to get in on the Artist Trading Card swap. What a cool idea!

 

4

  Gary Peterson ( homepage )

11/20/2008 * 07:57:40

Michael,
Thanks for the comments and for noticing the assemblage piece. I suppose I could have repaired those two musical instruments, but sometimes form overrides function.

Zander,
I'll try sketching up some ATCs and see how it goes; sounds like fun and for sure I'd be honored to trade with you just to say I own a genuine Lassen.

 

5

  Michael Mize ( homepage )

11/18/2008 * 10:40:41

Gary,

Aside from this being a tremendously enjoyable read, it was a remarkably concise comparison between the aesthetic properties of music and art. You clearly outlined numerous parallels I had never been aware of myself, not having the proficiency in music that you possess. I can't wait to share this with other art and music enthusiasts.

P.S. Props on another really slick Nevelson inspired assemblage!

 

6

  Zander Lassen ( homepage )

11/17/2008 * 18:14:58

Hi Gary- Thank you for the great post and the new word: eidetic. We should send that Steve Wright joke to Richard Prince, he might like to use it for one of his joke paintings. Have you heard of ATCs (Artist Trading Cards). There are only 3 rules:
1. they must be 2.5×3.5"
2. they can only be traded for other cards, not money
3. they should be traded in person
I have two posted in my ATC gallery. We could bend the 3rd rule and trade by mail if you like. Strathmore makes stock or you can make your own (www.strathmoreartist.com/atc) Have a good one- Zander

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