Tag: Antonio Vivaldi

S_V_H Vivaldi’s Four Seasons & a photographer’s regret.

Published on by Scott Von Holzen
Vivaldi_4Seasons Feb 10th
Length 7 feet.
Vivaldi_4Seasons January 26th
Vivaldi_4Seasons January 22nd
Vivaldi_4Seasons January 19th

The following is an early draft of this artwork’s soundtrack. The flow between concertos is lacking, but each season includes a short intro, a main verse, and an outro to achieve a complete track. I have my template to build the artwork and the cover music.

The rough draft of excerpts from Vivaldi’s the 4 seasons January 11th.

I have spent a lot of valuable time planning and making and painting the wooden parts for each season, and putting them all together, as one artwork. I am already feeling the strain of time and effort. Because so much of this project is do, do, do, do a step, then repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, this has taken it toll on my drive, appreciation for what I am trying to accomplish, and for what reason. The only time saved should be the single stereo system. If I can sync the lighting with the music, to all flow together.

My first thought for the new project was to create a nice short, even soundtrack from the four concertos, and then “sample” each season on the canvases. That is my current practice. Instead, after some thought and testing if practical, I decided against sampling the cover music. Instead, I picked 8 measures from Spring, 5 from Summer, 4 from Fall, and 5 from Winter as my cover music. I then made and found the room on six canvases to display the entire soundtrack. Looking at the current image, what I see is a 3D version of the artwork’s sheet music.

It is nice that the music opens with the Spring concerto, one well-known classic melody. From there on I am less confident of any other connection by causal listeners. What makes this cover harder to compose is setting a limit to less than 90 seconds (My limit to a viewer’s attention span) That restriction then made it possible to fit all the music onto to the artwork.

This is going to be the last project from my short-lived EmptyWallsArt group with three members gone already. It is also being hung in March at a wine and art bar downtown. How important is this show for this art? I would say it has little to no value. The reason I went along was loyalty to the group and the manager of the wine bar insisting on a show theme. I have always thought that building an exhibition on a theme was a great way to bring this apathetic group together. But, all the creative genesis at the table had nothing good to suggest. Luckily, out of desperation, the easy theme choice that found unanimous support was the four seasons. Thanks to Vivaldi, that theme I thought would be an interesting challenge.

Photography____________________________________________

When I booted up my aging Windows 10 computer, there appeared an image of two dolphins jumping out of the water, seen from the water, looking to the shoreline that looked like a wooden campground. The first thing I thought was as a photograph, this image was fake.

For many years before I returned to painting I was a dedicated follower of Ansel Adams and his Zone system. I was a decent photographer but only functional in the darkroom, no matter how much money I spent on equipment, and no matter the hundreds of hours spent in the dark. Of course I had my successes, but over many years and attempts, I never achieve my goal in photography, becoming the next Ansel Adams.

What made Ansel, Weston, Stieglitz, Frank, Winogrand, Steichen, Friedlander, and many more that inspired my camera grip, was they all knew how to capture the moment. That is the essence of what all great photography excelled at. That is until Adobe Photoshop became a much more powerful alternative. Are the Dolphins fake? I don’t know, but it is the year 2025, and the current Photoshop release is 25.12.1. The ability to change an image has reached a near peak in abilities from when I first started learning and following Photoshop using version two, has gradually, then quickly, allowed me to change with the times.

I am all in on Photoshop and digital photography, replacing all the tedium, expense and time I spent years ago in the dark to create a single good photographic image. How much of today’s photography is actually real? I do not know. But I have my doubts about any unknown image I see on my computer screen. I believe that the images which once defined photography as great will survive. But Photoshop’s skill at altering an image has lowered today’s photography to the status of a tired outdoor billboard, on a 6.5 inch screen. I will always be grateful to all the great darkroom photographers from the past that inspired me to learn their techniques to manipulate, to enhance contrast, and getting there to be there at just the right moment. Regardless of what is and what is not, I’ve moved on. No matter if the Dolphins are real or not, there they are flying in the air in a photo that appears to be in the moment. Despite this, the heart of this photographer, once devoted to capturing the thrill of the moment on film, now feels photography to be a self rewarding, fleeting indulgence. Today’s photography is much too much like enjoying a donut, only to regret it later.

“Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
A nation turns its lonely eyes to you, ….
What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson
‘Ansel’ has left and gone away….”

Ansel Adam: Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941 (image courtesy of Wikipedia)

Scott Von Holzen

S_V_H All too Well final artwork & music

Published on by Scott Von Holzen
All too Well
≈ H45xL31xD9.5 inches

On an online video with Jimmy Fallon Taylor Swift mentions ” personnel favorites.” Her favorite on the Taylor’s version of the Red Album is the ten-minute long All too Well. I can relate to that in that of the 29 Taylor Swift songs on my Spotify Like playlist. five of them are different versions of All too Well. This music has a controlled driving beat, rhythm and harmony. It also comes in different versions, which also is appealing (video below). But it is not just the new ten-minute version of this music that finally caught my attention, it was the lyrics.

This is an alternate 10 minute version of All too Well (Sad Girl Autumn Version)

The lyrics for this music are exceptional (like “dancing around the kitchen in the refrigerator light.” But it is these specific lines that sparked my interest: “And I left my scarf there at your sister’s house, and you’ve still got it in your drawer, even now.” And then the much later circle back that convinced me: “But you keep my old scarf from that very first week ’cause it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me…….” These words sound honest and real life like to me, feeling genuine compared too much of pop music I listen to. Finally, I am always hesitant about choosing a fairly current piece of pop music, but the timing was right for this music to be a part of a first application attempt at a new exhibit.

Hopkins Center for the Arts

It was a disappointment when I looked to apply for a major art show and realized I was a few days past the deadline. The Hopkins International takes place this January at the Hopkins Art Center in Hopkins, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. I was fortunate to be chosen for their juried members’ show this fall, but The Hopkins International is a much larger exhibition that I last exhibited in 2019. Also, I was hesitant, which slowed my timing, to apply for this show. The drop off is only two days in early January, with the reception a week later requiring four winter drives through Saint Paul and Minneapolis. Missing this show made me think to pay closer attention to exhibition in the future. Encouragingly, my focus is now on three other open art calls to apply for in 2025 over the next couple of weeks.

I also have one current last opportunity for our remaining EmptyWallsArt group in a month long show at a wine and art bar this coming March. This project will be interesting, if this actually happens, for the theme that was agreed on was the four seasons. This takes me back to the thirteen Antonio Vivaldi artworks painted but never shown that I am still wishing to offer free to a public location and display. Ever since I added music, I have wondered about updating these artworks for a show that plays and lights up the music from the four concertos. The difficulty is that this would be a very large and expensive project to give away art so I can free up space for the future storage of art. But this bar exhibit allows me to test the idea.

My pilot plan opportunity is to build one artwork that will contain four canvases and the music from Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. When pressing the music button, the first canvas, Spring, will light up and play a short piece from that concerto. Once finished, the next canvas will light playing the music from the Summer Concerto, followed by the Autumn and Winter canvases and concertos. I would like to keep the entire music cover around the minute and half goal I set for major artworks. I believe I can technically accomplish this build. If so, it will be interesting if there is any reaction or better interest that merits further development of the Vivaldi Four Seasons canvases.

Finally, here are my thoughts on All too Well. It is difficult to take a 10 minute song and trim it down to one-minute thirty seconds, without a lot of comprise to the music. This I regret. I respect each of these music box covers, and therefore I do my best to represent the music’s fullness. This requires following the songs flow from beginning to end and arranging the intro, verse, and chorus and ending accordingly to fit the demands of time I have set. I feel good about the growing quality of these artworks and of their cover music. I am unsure about the music owners, but I pay them anyway, even though the money value of this art is questionable. So it goes.

Scott Von Holzen

S_V_H A final image of Vivaldi RV578 Larghetto

Published on by Scott Von Holzen
Formal final image of Vivaldi’s RV578 Larghetto
≈ H40.5xL60.25xD7 inches
Earlier portrait of Vivaldi _Larghetto with an alternative arrangement
Vivaldi Larghetto displaying a Vivaldi quote and the artist’s attempt at cursive writing in the style of D’Nealian script.

This artwork is an example of the versatility of this art in arranging music, detailed in the video, and illustrated in the examples below. In the video I demonstrated two different alternate arrangements. The second example in the video is an obvious error. To better make my point below are five different arrangements (a challenge to find) that each keep the artworks musical flow the same. The unique aspect of this art lies in its capacity to change its visual presentation, possibly positioning it within the realm of Installation art.

I mentioned in the video comments on this arts use of color to add contrast and interest and less about caring about the actually colors or shades chosen or their relationship with each other. That comes from my disliking how many of today’s artworks stick to the traditional color rules in their artworks. The get-along approach to color and therefore the prettier the better fits well with contemporary art. Instead, (obviously I am not trying to market this painting) I use color as a tool to present to the viewer how I see and feel about the music.

Scott Von Holzen