This is the first image of a Bach Menuet on a two foot by four foot canvas, the largest that I have used in years.  This music will be in two sections, top and bottom, which will spill over the side edges.

I have a stockpile of stretched canvas in many sizes I collected years ago.   Many of them are large.  That came about because of the momentum created by Vivaldi’s Four Seasons series.  This group of thirteen giant paintings took almost three years to complete, from 2012 to early 2015.  All of them required multiple canvases bolted and screwed together.  That allowed me to create artworks for this series from 10 to 20-feet.   That was years ago.  What I paint today looks nothing like the Vivaldi group.   I know this art is early it in evolution, but will I ever use up the vast majority of my larger stock canvases.  I don’t think so.  The advantage of using a larger canvas for this project has little to do with the music or my canvas inventory. All my previous works from early 2019 to my latest I Will, are similar in style.  I felt enough of that.  That is when, for this project almost randomly, I  pick a 2 by 4 canvas for a change.  My other reason to use a bigger canvas was to give me more space to test out my new scratch-off technique still in development.

After painting my big canvas in the tradition of 1950s Abstraction, I glued on a canvas copy of Bach’s two page original manuscript of this Menuet.  I followed this by covering the entire canvas, using a process,  that when done and dry, allowed me to scrap off areas of the top layer of paint.  This then reveals my abstract1950s background.  I am still experimenting with this scrapping technique, finding that some areas scrapped off as expected and other parts did not.

The dictionary spelling of minuet differs from Bach’s spelling  which is menuet. I have read on Wikipedia that a minuet is a social dance with a 17th century French origin.  Bach’s best known minuet (written by Christian Petzold)  became a pop hit titled “A Lover’s Concerto,”  This is  BWV  Anh114:

I did not go that direction.  Maybe next time (which may come sooner than I first thought).  Instead, here is the YouTube video titled, J.S. Bach- Suite No.2 in B minor, BWV 1067: Menuet mvt. 6.  I have a draft of my music for this artwork.   Since this song repeats all parts, I like the Tempo of this version for it moves this music along.  I  also like my forty-five second version of this music.

I picked this minuet for its simplicity and the entire song is has a lot of nice  “hooks.” that kept my interest.

Scott