The music and theme of Erwartung (Expectation), a one act monodrama for soprano and large orchestra composed by Arnold Schoenberg is the inspiration for my current series of paintings.
The music written in 1906 and based on a libretto by Marie Pappenheim, is highly expressionistic and represents Schoenberg's "free atonal" period between 1908 and 1921. The drama takes place between twilight and dawn in and around a forest. A woman is searching for her lover who it transpires she has murdered. In Scene 1, the subject of the painting shown here, the woman overcomes her fears and enters the forest on a path. Painted in acrylics on canvas, the larger square format is new to me (120cm x 120cm). I am planning to complete the next two scenes in the same format with the final scene possibly in a much larger rectangular format. I very much look forward to launching and exhibiting the whole new series soon.
For those who wish to hear the music, the Naxos Series of Classical CDs includes a great performance of Erwartung with Robert Craft conducting and the wonderful Berlin born Anja Silja as soprano. Another exciting piece of expressionist music by Schoenberg is his Five Pieces for Orchestra also from 1909. Is this another possible series - we'll see!
3 comments:
Painting inspired by music is an interesting concept. This makes me want to try Handel's Messiah again. I think painting inspired by literature is equally interesting. I belong to a group, PAQA-S, that is planning an exhibit about art quilts inspired by literature.
Thanks for your comments. I am pleased you found my concept interesting - did you also check out my previous series inspired by the music of Benjamin Britten? This was in fact inspired by both music and poetry - the music (opera)was inspired by a poem and I used some of the text of that poem in my works.
You mentioned the Messiah but I have always wanted to use Bach`s Mass in B Minor - this is a little way off but on the back burner!!
What is PAQA-S?
In a way, for an art-lover like myself, decorating our home is quite easy. I just please myself mostly, with my poor husband going along with most of my choices. I am always collecting beautiful things, like handicraft decorative pieces, little sculptures and hangings.
And I simply hang lovely paintings in all our rooms. Not all are originals of course, as who can afford many of those.
I order many prints on canvas from Wahooart who have a vast collection of images from Western art, that you can choose to make economically-priced prints like this Interior in Aubergines, by Henri Matisse, from there.
I can choose the frames as well and my orders are delivered quickly to my home.
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