Category: Classical

S_V_H Vivaldi – L’Estro Armonico, Op. 3, Concerto No. 2, Larghetto image6

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

Vivaldi painting 3 panel.  My wife Barbara thinks the note heads look like pool balls. There you go, finding  anther reason to believe.  Just to follow up on the pool balls, in side each one are two other circles, that are there to create movement across the canvas.  As always the movement is from the traditional left to right.  This information about inner circles has been mentioned in the past and here to try and explain this technique.  The placement of the inside circle accomplishes that sense of motion.  That positioning is important considering these works are trying to capture a single point or  moment in music, but at that exact same time, similar to music itself, keep the art flowing. Those pool balls, or eye balls, whatever, are there to animate the flow of music.

Music is meant to be played from the start to the finish. This art is a dramatization of a moments interruption of that music, never to be played or sung.  One basic reason why this artist paints music is because it gives a great opportunity to listen to music, without quilt.  But more so painting music gives this artist a way to express his passion for music.  Like great voices or musicians, that take music to a high level of performance appreciation , so it is this, that is a quest of the artist, to take music beyond sheet music, which right now is the only other way to visualize the physical appearance of music.  Hopefully that makes some sense.

It must be mentioned that the Birthday painting 2011 has now been uploaded to the artist website at www.scottvonholzen.com, with a 1500 pixel enlargement.  Interestingly,  two of our Grandchildren Jordyn and Kindyl both walked up to the Birthday painting sitting on two low easels, and touched the canvas enjoying  all of the bright colors.  This artist up to that point had never seen anyone touch his artworks.  It felt right as it should.

Scott Von Holzen

S_V_H Vivaldi – L’Estro Armonico, Op. 3, Concerto No. 2, Larghetto image5

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

A work of art based on the music of Vivaldi, 3 panel 24 inches by 11 feet.  Listening to
Vivaldi’s  Lute (Chamber) Concerto, For Lute (Or Guitar), 2 Violins & Continuo In D Major, Rv 93: III. Allegro. Classical music has long titles, but the best in its day may have had shorten names or maybe even nicknames: thinking the common name for Bagatelle No. 25 in A Minor (WoO 59 and Bia 515) for solo piano, Beethoven’s Fur Elise. There is so much to learn that is going to require more time then this artist can spend.

Progress note: Painted in the base color for all of the note shafts.  The dark blue is Prussian.  The shafts of the single notes are a tinted Turquois.  The inner shafts of the beamed notes are a Cobalt blue.  It is important, since a note head is never attached to the stem that they have a shade or tint of the note color to connect the two. Although, this music is soft in sound, it is the thinking that all of these stems should be painted with enough contrast to vibrate the flow across the canvas.

Listening to Beethoven’s  Piano Sonata No. 1 In F Minor, Op. 2/1: I. Allegro on Pandora. Na, this one will probable never be painted.

Strange is the effect of an art review article in the New York Times about Frans Hals at the Metropolitan.  This artist has seen a number of Frans Hals works and has always been impressed by his free use of the brush and the wonderful results he gets: there is lessons to be learned.  After reading that review last night,  using a filbert brush, and a nice blue, down the length of a couple of the Prussian shafts, back-en-forth the paint flowed.  No, it certainly was not a Frans Hal sleeve.  That was never the intention. It just seemed for no apparent reason to livened up that dark blue. Frans Hal had a reason for his brush work, no matter how freely it appears to have been applied. But when it comes to this art,  there is this lingering, guilty thought  that the artist must stay true to the music and not drift towards pretty colors and shapes that are just decorative. The problem with that thinking is that there is the real world of painting a representation of a a piece of clothing,  and this art that is attempting to paint the emotional and the physical flow music altogether on canvas.

Now, listening to Christina Aquilera in iTunes.

Look at Matisse and how decorative he was, thinking Harmony in Red.  Then there is Van Gogh and his stabbing brush work. Vincent took the real appearance of  the sky,  trees, and ground and created a difference visual perception in his short, sharp stabs of paint that is quite understandable today, unlike in his own time.  Since what they both do is art, then understandably, they free this artist to do any painterly interpretation of musical art that is wished. Wow, that a break through.  Your kidding me it took you that long to figure out the obvious?  This art is based only on one demand that each of these artworks only depict the realistic flow of one piece of music.  That is it, and anything beyond that added to the canvas is there to enhance the emotional impact of the flow.  It is simple, and this artist knows what he is doing, and how important it is sometimes to write down and discuss his thoughts.  This blog, at times, can help to clear the mind.   It is just believing that is the hard part.  Believing hard, and then harder, is what will make the dream real.

That is it, listening to Natalie Merchant and Wonder.

Ending this blog entry with John Lee Hooker and The King of the World.

Scott Von Holzen

S_V_H Vivaldi – L’Estro Armonico, Op. 3, Concerto No. 2, Larghetto image4

Published on by Scott Von Holzen1 Comment

The music of Vivaldi, 3 panel 24 inches by eleven feet.  There was a lot of tweaking that has gone on with the background before adding the notes.  The confidence in what is being attempted with the background,  is just not there.   Even after all of those small modifications.  The idea is solid just the execution is in questioned.

Antonio Vivaldi’s music is exceptional.  This artist listens to his works and feels better connected to him, at this time, than the music of Chopin, Beethoven, or the perennial favorite Mozart.  Ah, Mozart. Understand at this point there is so much knowledge that is lacking that this artist can only base his musical validity on the  fact that music plays in his life in as many hours can be had.

Right now Imagine (painted) by John Lennon is playing on the computer.  On the way to work either the iPod, on the bike, or the SD card in the Pontiac are spinning the tunes. At work its the iTunes player and some 4700 of current 11500 pieces of music in the digital collection, played through a pair of decent speakers and a sub woofer, at any level desired.  This artist office room is near the server room which is far enough way from the rest of the office staff to be little of a distraction.  Maybe, a small distraction when walking by the office door, but that is done on purpose.

You see , when coming to and walking away from the office, the music is either a greeting or a farewell. Rare is the time that the job creates tensions that stops the music.  At home mowing the lawn, trimming and blowing all works better with ear protection and the iPod.  Even house cleaning, or home improvement projects, all go better with the help of the streaming service Pandora and the iPod. Going for walks also could not be done without the iPod.  Driving my wife’s car requires the moving of the music player to her car, because all she listens to is country.  Sorry, there is some rare, great country music, but most of it is, disposable. Now, listening to Vivaldi’s Concerto in G minor, huh.

Still there is the knowledge that the more this artist tries to better himself in the basics of Music Theory, or even leaning to play the piano, the more knowledge and skill is desired.   This artist is constantly humbled by those great Composers, and artists that bring life to music, and critical of his own lack of musical credibility.  Things will change, in time, if time permits.  With working full time, and other obligations, this artist is tired each day he returns home to the studio. So, yes things will change in time. If time is hopefully generous.  Now listening to Jackson Browne, huh.

Scott Von Holzen