Lesson 1:
Artist: Arthur G. Dove (1880-1946)
Music: George Gershwin (1898-1937) "Rhapsody in Blue"
Works to be studied:
Dove's "Rhapsody in Blue, Part I George Gershwin" (1927) and "Rhapsody in Blue, Part II George Gershwin" (1927)
Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" (1924)
Background Information
Rhapsody in Blue was a landmark in American musical history. Commissioned by Paul Whiteman in 1924, the Rhapsody symbolized the serious ambitions of jazz musicians and composers. In composing this work, Gershwin welcomed the opportunity to expand both the possibilities and the audience for jazz:
There had been so much chatter about the limitations of jazz, not to speak of the manifest misunderstandings of its function. Jazz, they said, had to be in strict time. It had to cling to dance rhythms. I resolved, if possible, to kill that misconception with one sturdy blow. Inspired by this aim, I set to work composing with unwonted rapidity. No set plan was in my mind no structure to which my music would conform. The rhapsody, as you see, began as a purpose, not a plan (Zilczer, 363).
The premiere on February 12, 1924, created a sensation. The concert not only established Gershwin as a serious composer, it also elevated jazz from the local clubs to the concert hall.
Arthur Dove, one of the many thousands who listened to Gershwin's music, produced two little-known works a collage and an oil painting based on Gershwin's jazz rhapsody. Dove derived constant inspiration from music. He had become much interested in the melodies coming over the radio. Experimenting with sounds, he had worked out his shorthand system that recorded sounds as music does on a scale.
Dove was so interested in relating line to music that he worked out his own method of recording musical sound in a long vertical form similar to ticker-tape. This was a score for written music...not a painted interpretation of it. The linear paintings were related to these musical transcriptions and had linear patterns similar to Kandinsky (Zilczer, 362).
The musical scales were used vertically and the sounds were written by movements that were linear instead of notes. These musical pieces were expressed in terms of color, as music is expressed in terms of sound. Dove was convinced that abstract painting could attain an emotive power comparable to that of music: "anybody should be able to feel a certain state and express it in terms of pain or music...Art is nearer to music, not the music of the ears, just the music of the eyes." Dove repeatedly combined specific allusions to music into his abstract compositions. Eventually his exploration of musical analogy in abstract painting attracted him to the most popular and distinctly American style of contemporary music jazz. From the start, the paintings were linked intimately to the music that had inspired them.
Listening and studying "Rhapsody in Blue" by George Gershwin through Object Analysis
Using description, we hear that it is a jazz ensemble with solo piano. It is about 10-11 minutes in length. How many solo lines do we hear? How many group solo lines? Who are playing the melodies soloist, high pitched or low pitched instruments?
With deduction, we feel the rhythms of the piece. We begin to sense ourselves with an emotion of sorts. How is it making us feel? What kind of effect is it going to have on us? We hear the instrumentalists reacting to each other, particularly the pianist with the other musicians. Staccato lines jump around in a rhythm which suggests direction, yet the rhythm is quite turbulent. In parts the band responds with biting sarcasm. Elliptical shapes and sharp wavelike lines rise up and down in a vertical pattern. Since the piece is based on music that we are familiar with, there is a lively sense of recognition after we make the connections. The composition has lines that are broken and choppy and also has some sweeping lines. The melody of the piece soars in and out of the choppy lines.
Finishing with speculation, we can assess that jazz is really a combination of a little ragtime, the blues, classicism, and spirituals. It is a notated work of improvisation and rhythm. It has moments of sounding exact rhythmically and harmonically, moving to moments of sounding improvised. While the music is written out, it is written with flourishes and polyrhythms that might indicate a feel for improvisation. At times it throws us off by combining jazz and classical. However, it is a piece that revolves around combining them both. In a couple words, this is a perfect realization of the work brash and egotistical just the impression we would expect from such a composer daring enough to combine jazz and the classics.
Follow-Up Questions
1. Is the pace of the music slow or fast? What kind of place does it suggest?
2. It the mood agitated, mellow or cool? With those answers, do we feel the artist might use more horizontals or verticals?
3. Can you visualize a color to the sounds you hear? What do you feel the artist will be visualizing?
4. Are the tones you hear light, dark or murky? Do you think that will influence the artists brush stroke (smooth or rough)?
5. Where is the music best sensed in color, line, or composition?
6. After listening to the music, what can we tell about the art?
7. What sounds might inspire the painting?
Studying Dove's "Rhapsody in Blue, Part I George Gershwin" through Object Analysis
We begin to look at Dove's first painting influenced by Gershwin. Using description, we see a collage of oil and metallic paint on aluminum with a clock spring. The art measures 11 3/4 x 9 3/4. We see in the collage panel
Rhapsody in Blue, Part I
, a field of light-blue and turquoise pigment is inflected with strands of short black lines. Within these colors, we see splotches of yellow, pink, and maroon which animate the surface and enrich the predominantly light-blue hues of the painted collage. An area of deep violet in the lower portion of the panel arrests the downward movement of the vertical axes created by three major intervals of long meandering lines.
Some questions to ask involving description:
-
• What colors are obvious in the art?
-
• What forms do we see?
-
• What kind of lines do we see?
-
• How many dimensions?
-
• What is the texture of the art?
-
• What designs or motifs do we see if any?
Using deduction, we might be able to look at the painting as it represents the actual music with the soloist. The aluminum panel and metallic paint might give a certain brilliance to the sound of the music. The lines and bends in the paint could demonstrate the melodies in the music. Where does the music begin and end in the painting?
Some questions to ask involving deduction:
-
• What is the relation between the depicted art and our world?
-
• Where are we positioned in the art and what role, if any, might we play?
-
• How would we enter the pictorial space?
-
• What happened prior to the painting and what may happen next?
-
• What might our reaction be to the painting?
-
• What feelings does this abstract art leave me with?
-
• What role does the broken clock spring represent?
-
• Can we see that this might be improvisational art mixed with mechanistic allusions eluding to Gershwin's jazz rhapsody?
Using speculation, we can guess that the lines in this painting could achieve an improvisational freedom closely related to musical melody. We might see that from that point on, the artwork is expressed in terms of color as music is in terms of sound. With the aluminum panel and metallic paint, Dove was perhaps using these materials to evoke the machine aesthetic seeing that the uncoiled clock spring is indeed the central element of in the artwork.
Some questions to ask involving speculation:
-
• What time of day is it?
-
• What is the season of the year?
-
• What do you imagine happening in this picture?
-
• What do you feel the artist was depicting?
-
• What ideas does it leave you with?
-
• What do you perceive this picture to interpret?
Lesson 2:
Artist: Jackson Pollock
Music: Jackson Pollock Jazz CD
This is a compilation CD of jazz and swing music that can be used repeatedly in the lesson plan. It provides a various mix of performers and musical styles.
Works to be studied:
Pollock's "
Autumn Rhythm
" (1950)
Musical selections by Coleman Hawkins
Background Information
The painter Lee Krasner once remarked that Jackson Pollock "would get into grooves of listening to his jazz records not just for days day and night, day and night for three days running, until you thought you would climb the roof!...Jazz? He thought it was the only other really creative thing that was happening in this country." As Pollock's wife, Krasner could of course speak with special expertise. With this information, we see that there might be some correlation between works produced by Pollock and certain jazz structures. More recently, there have been propositions that the basic qualities in Pollock's paintings improvisation, directness, elements of chance and accident largely derive from a jazz aesthetic (Mandeles, 140). For Pollock, jazz music in its different forms, served as a way of executing the unconscious, and convoking spontaneous invention in his artwork.
Pollock didn't want people to analyze his art or look for recognizable figures or scenes. "I think it should be enjoyed," he said, "just as music is enjoyed" (Mandeles, 140). This jazz music that accompanied Pollock's improvising on a horizontal canvas was hot, powerful, spontaneous, and penetratingly emotional. For example, without losing sight of chord structure, Coltrane and his fellow musicians would develop long improvisatory solos; this recognizable aural imagery continued to nourish Pollock's intensely worked paintings. It is not surprising that given Coltrane's improvisations, the song's interpretation was still understood by the lyrical interpretation and its extended length and flow. Even though the lines were improvised on and given freedom by the soloists, the melodies all centralized around a certain chordal structure, ending in the same place each time. In that respect, that is why the interpretation was still understood. A similar effect was achieved in Pollock's paintings his use of large-scale canvases evolved with open, flowing lines, shown by his pouring technique. What is drawn together in Pollock's works is an essential parallel between the structural principles of his painting and those of jazz. Both have structure and at times have freedom, but they end in the appropriate place with the other instruments or colors.
Listening and studying "Boff Boff (Mop Mop)" by Coleman Hawkins and the Leonard Feather's All Stars
Using description, we listen to Coleman Hawkins play his tenor saxophone. He has a very dark mellow sound. The piece is played by Hawkins and a jazz ensemble, alternating solo lines between Hawkins and others in the ensemble. It is a little more than three minutes in length.
Using deduction, we hear a theme that the ensemble opens the piece with. There is a flexible but continuous pulse. We notice melodic runs in the solo piano as well as Hawkins' horn, along with sudden bursts and rich-toned plummets. He improvises the melody using varieties of pitch and intensity in short and extended phrases, with sudden runs and bursts. To close the piece, we hear the same solo theme that opened the piece. As jazz music is improvised, it becomes chaotic at times. Perhaps at this point, after listening, we might feel uncertainty and confusion as to who is soloing and what instruments are playing.
Finishing with speculation, we can assess that Hawkins breaks down the formal architecture of representational or harmonic improvisation. It marks a shift in emphasis from object to process, permitting sound to function as a carefully orchestrated but individual aural element.
Questions
-
1. Is the pace of the music slow or fast? What kind of place does it suggest?
-
2. Is the mood agitated, mellow or cool? With those answers, do we feel the artist might use more horizontals or verticals?
-
3. Can you visualize a color to the sounds you hear? What do you feel the artist will be visualizing?
-
4. Are the tones you hear light, dark or murky? Do you think that will influence the artists brush stroke (smooth or rough)?
-
5. Where is the music best sensed in color, line, or composition?
-
6. After listening to the music, what can we tell about the art?
-
7. What sounds might inspire the painting?
Studying Pollock's "Autumn Rhythm"
Using description, we see oil on canvas. The size is 105 x 207". It contains autumn colors brown, oranges, and black.
Some questions to ask involving description:
-
• What colors are obvious in the art?
-
• What forms do we see?
-
• What kind of lines do we see?
-
• How many dimensions?
-
• What is the texture of the art?
-
• What designs or motifs do we see if any?
With deduction, we see a variety of drips, spatters and pouring of paint on the canvas. There are many horizontal lines. There are also many wide arcing lines.
Some questions to ask involving deduction:
-
• What is the relation between the depicted art and our world?
-
• Where are we positioned in the art and what role, if any, might we play?
-
• How would we enter the pictorial space?
-
• What happened prior to the painting and what may happen next?
-
• What might our reaction be to the painting?
-
• How does it make us feel?
Finally, by speculation, we can assume that Pollock was spontaneous in his artwork, painting similarly to what he heard composed and performed in jazz music. The breakdown of the artwork shows that while there is a formal architecture, his work embodies a harmonic improvisation. It combines a visual element with an audible element. His work expresses an intense energy like jazz music does. You begin to see how he uses paint as if it were highly charged with subatomic particles by the splatters and pours, the lines and the colors. It exemplifies the careful balance between accident and control that characterizes both his art and the important jazz of the period.
Some questions to ask involving speculation:
• What do you imagine happening in this picture?
• What do you feel the artist was depicting?
• What ideas does it leave you with?
• What do you perceive this picture to interpret?
Lesson 3:
Artist: Stuart Davis
Music: Jackson Pollock Jazz CD
Works to be studied:
Davis' "Swing Landscape"
Musical selections: Count Basie and His Orchestra
Background Information
Stuart Davis was born in Philadelphia in 1894. He grew up in an artistic environment and as he grew older, appreciated the art value of music, especially jazz. Stuart Davis viewed technological developments such as radio as forces which changed the fundamental experience of American life. He believed that visual art needed to change in style in order to reflect the audible art brought by modern twentieth century media. Davis celebrates jazz by characterizing a new, jazz-inspired visual language a method of examining and communicating modern American life. He analyzed the significance and role of commercial jazz in American culture.
By the Swing Era, jazz was America's most popular musical genre. The technological intervention of the recording industry had brought jazz to a greater number of Americans by immortalizing it on records and broadcasting it through the radio. These technologies made jazz a universal, pervasive part of the American landscape. Davis found that his paintings could not help being influenced by the jazz sensibility of American culture. He wrote:
...I have always liked hot music. There's something wrong with any American who doesn't. But I never realized that it was influencing my work until one day I put on a favorite record and listened to it while I was looking at a painting I had just finished. Then I got a funny feeling. If I looked, or if I listened, there was no shifting of attention. It seemed to amount to the same thing like twins, a kinship. After that, for a long time, I played records while I painted (Kelder 12).
Davis' work concentrated on the technological communication (recording and broadcasting) of jazz, rather than on creation of jazz music itself. It no longer reflected the sensibilities of the African-American culture that created it. The broadcasting of jazz caused a shift in reality of all Americans. It was Davis who employed this method of envisioning reality in 1938's "Swing Landscape."
Listening and studying "One O'Clock Jump"
Using description, we listen to Count Basie and his Orchestra solos between piano to start, sax, trombone, and trumpet. There is a continuous beat and rhythm underlying the ensemble, best heard by drumset and bass. It is about three minutes in length.
Using deduction, we hear a theme that opens the piece. There is a continuous pulse that keeps the piece moving right along. The melody is introduced and moves from one instrument to another, incorporating improvisation. There are other instruments that back up the soloists. They provide the background chord progressions. What instruments are heard? What sounds do they produce brilliant, dull, focused, etc.? What notes bend? Where do we hear melismatic lines?
Following up with speculation, we can assess that swing music is music that is meant to be danced to. It is a constant piece of music offering no changes in rhythm or tempo. The music combines jazz with dance. It offers the harmonies and improvisations as jazz does, with a more emphasized rhythm underneath it, indicating its dance qualities.
Questions
-
1. Is the pace of the music slow or fast? What kind of place does it suggest?
-
2. Is the mood agitated, mellow or cool? With those answers, do we feel the artist might use more horizontals or verticals?
-
3. Can you visualize a color to the sounds you hear? What do you feel the artist will be visualizing?
-
4. Are the tones you hear light, dark or murky? Do you think that will influence the artists' brush stroke (smooth or rough)?
-
5. Where is the music best sensed in color, line, or composition?
-
6. After listening to the music, what can we tell about the art?
-
7. What sounds might inspire the painting?
Observing Davis' "Swing Landscape"
Using description, we see a colorful and vibrant painting. It is oil on canvas, 86 3/4 x 172 7/8 inches. There are many blues in this painting. We see various geometric forms. There is a pair of sunglasses and a metronome in the bottom left corner.
Some questions to ask involving description:
-
• What colors are obvious in the art?
-
• What forms do we see?
-
• What kind of lines do we see?
-
• How many dimensions?
-
• What is the texture of the art?
-
• What designs or motifs do we see if any?
With deduction, we might feel that the art is free-spirited, improvisatory, or apparently a non-specific composition. It has a full conglomerate of color, snappy floating shapes, staccato patterns, and crisp drawings.
Some questions to ask involving deduction:
-
• What is the relation between the depicted art and our world?
-
• Where are we positioned in the art and what role, if any, might we play?
-
• How would we enter the pictorial space?
-
• What happened prior to the painting and what may happen next?
-
• What might our reaction be to the painting?
-
• How does it make us feel?
Finally, using speculation, we see this work of art displaying a type of figurative depiction, using different symbols, sources, and content. The colors give a feeling of jazz with the use of blues and cool colors. The use of warm colors perhaps shows the unpredictability of jazz, as well as the vibrancy of that music form. This painting represents the feeling of jazz, even though it might not be evident at first glance. The tension between apparently conflicting themes of warped harmonies and dissonances of jazz add energy to the picture. The fact that the music is incredibly vibrant and unpredictable is quite noticeable.
Some questions to ask involving speculation:
-
• What time of day is it?
-
• What is the season of the year?
-
• What do you imagine happening in this picture?
-
• What do you feel the artist was depicting?
-
• What ideas does it leave you with?
-
• What do you perceive this picture to interpret?
