Week 4

Music and ArtMarilou Polymeropoulou

[email protected]

http://musicandartoxford.wordpress.com/

Department for Continuing Education

Week 4Impressionism

Friday, 10 February 2012

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]



Previously

• Definitions of art and aesthetics

• Musical aesthetics

• Visual and Hybrid arts


Today

• Impressionism movement

• Examples: Debussy’s “The Sea” (1905): listening, reading, representing

• Monet’s “Impression, sunrise” (1872): landscape and realism


Impressionism

“Impression - I was certain of it. I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some

impression in it — and what freedom, what ease of workmanship! A preliminary drawing for a wallpaper

pattern is more finished than this seascape.”

Louis Leroy “Le Charivari”, 25/4/1874


Impressionism

• 19th & early 20th century

• Term coined by French artist/art critic Louis Leroy “Le Charivari” satirical newspaper

• Purpose: to accurately and objectively record visual reality in terms of transient effects of light and colour

• Notable: Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro.

• Some impressionist works by: Paul Gauguin, Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne


http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/cezanne/




Oil on canvas, 100.5 x 81 cm (39 1/2 x 31 7/8"); The Art

Institute of Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Larned Collection

Renoir On the Terrace 1881

“Why shouldn't art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in the

world.”


Pissarro Le verger (The Orchard) 1872; Oil on linen, 45.1 x 54.9 cm (17 3/4 x 21 5/8"); National Gallery of Art,

Washington


Monet Coquelicots (Poppies, Near Argenteuil) 1873; Musée d'Orsay, Paris


Rouen CathedralMonet

1892 1893 1894


Degas, Musicians in the Orchestra, 1872

Realism


Impressionist music

• Atmosphere

• Reaction to the excess of Romanticism

• Dissonance

• Forms: nocturne, arabesque, prelude (shorter forms)

• Characteristics: dynamics, melodies, harmony, sensualism


Musical aesthetics• 19th century: expression of ideas, images,

emotions, situations.

• Schopenhauer’s criticism on music as the greatest art: has the capacity to represent the metaphysical organisation of reality.

• Direct expression of emotions/moods/feelings (Tolstoy’s communication theory)

• Hanslick: music related to its representational function (formalism).


DebussyLa mer (1905)

• The sea, three symphonic sketches for orchestra (opposed to the term “symphony”)

• 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, 3 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 2 trombones, tuba, 3 timpani, cymbals, tamtam, 2 harps, strings



• 1. De l'aube à midi sur la mer (From dawn to noon on the sea) (approx. 9 min)

• 2. Jeux de vagues (Play of the waves) (approx. 6 min 30 sec)

• 3. Dialogue du vent et de la mer (Dialogue of the wind and the sea) (approx. 8 min)



• 1) Listen

• 2) Imagine

• 3) Draw shapes/images

• 4) Examine the score


flutes

clarinets

clarinets

bassoons

oboe Page 150

bassoonsPage 151

Melody 1Friday, 10 February 2012

Flutes

FlutesPage 156

Melody 2


La Mer waveform


Week 4

Spiritual

Transcript of Week 4