Tag: contemporary art

S_V_H Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix Final Image

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

monCoeursouvre_FinalI have completed this my first Aria. Unusual,  but true, I cannot pronounce the title of this artwork in French.   Softly Awakes My Heart is this music’s English name, but I prefer the original title that comes from the French Opera,  Samson and Delilah. One of my goals for this  painting was to let the music move off the canvas. As you can see above that is what I did accomplish, after solving a number of technical issues. The wire I finally ended up using, annealed aluminum,  is actually used for training of Bonsai trees.  It is a lot easier,  and lighter than copper, with the advantage of being thicker, but easier to mold into place. Of course even this fairly large wire is not enough to create a strong visual effect. That is why I grab a bunch of scrap pieces of wood, and had some fun. If you go back to late 2012 and this  Vivaldi painting from the Four Seasons Series, Autumn Allegro,  you can see the origin of that idea using  paint only.

4SeasonsAutumnAllegroFinalSimilar  what you see in the Vivaldi artwork, and in this French Aria painting,  those assortment of shapes around the flow are there to create the look of pieces of the music being toss about.  When sounded a note’s tone often continues, although diminished, until drowned out by the next note.  In these two artworks I express those reduced  pitches in the form of panted pieces, and scraps of wood, with the side effect of adding interest,  movement, and in this artwork, adding mass around the wire.

This artwork has an odd shape, and construction, but I think the look turns out to be fine because the painting looks balance. Again, as I mentioned before, the background is good, but it is not the fresh look I am looking for. This is a beautiful Aria, and I believe this artwork stands out as a great visual representation that honors the music.

 

 

Scott Von Holzen

S_V_H Mon Coeur s’ouvre á ta voix (Softly Awakens My Heart) image1

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

“softlyAwakensMyHeart_1Mon  Coeur s’ouvre á ta voix,” quoting Wikipedia, “..is a popular mezzo-soprano aria from Camille Saint-Saëns’s opera Samson and Delilah, known in English as “Softly awakes my heart”. It is sung by Delilah in act 2 as she attempts to seduce Samson into revealing the secret of his strength.”

This quote from Wikipedia explains the change made to this Opera song, that convinced me to paint this music:
“In the opera, Delilah is responding to Samson’s words “Dalila! Dalila! Je t’aime!” (Delilah! Delilah! I love you!) which he repeats between the first and second verses of her aria; these interjections are omitted in recital performances or sometimes sung to the changed words “Samson! Samson! Je t’aime!“; Samson’s part in the final 22 bars of the stage aria where he joins Delilah in a duet is also omitted in a recital, although some performers, notably Marilyn Horne and Jessye Norman, have sung Samson’s final words – changed as above, rising to a high B-flat (my emphasis).”

Here is the link to the video to a wonderful performance of this change to the music, beautifully sung by Elina Garanca.   At the end of the aria, starting  at 5:45 minutes, there is a small pause, and then she softly sings, “..Samson.., Samson, ..I love you.” That is the music of this Artwork.

 

 

S_V_H The Sound of Silence Final Image

Published on by Scott Von Holzen
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Sound of Silence L60″ x H22″


This is the final, final image of The Sound Silence made up of two canvas sixty inches in length. My color theme is Urban Gritty with dominant shades of blue-gray, and dull colored greens for the music, which is an interesting choice.  When I was in New York City this last fall visiting my good friend Tom,  there was not a lot of green in the streets. That is probably why I took one of my snapshots that day.

The real final image is the second version of the first final image which you can view below.  This came about, when I realized while writing this entry, that I had forgotten one last piece of the music. That missing piece appears in the second final image as a small wooden ledger line across three of my pieces of music. With that add-on I applied more of the street colors that caught my eye as contrast to the drab tones of the buildings. That finishing touch then allowed me to consider another change.

Throughout the later stages of this artwork I developed this feeling that the coloring was not quite there.  All of my attempts had only small affects or I washed them away. My thinking settled on that the coloring was okay, so leave it.  What caught my attention, after painting the add-on ledger line,  where those light violet colored musical stems.  The good color choice well with the background, but after looking at my images of New York that day, light violet seemed out-of-place, a little too packaged for me.  I decided to repaint all the stems with a color that better fit my urban color style. That made all the difference, artwork done, for sure.

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My take on this painting is that the basic theme of the colors works exceptionally well for my interruption of this music. The length of the artwork is a little long, but I wanted to use the same size notes as my earlier work, Under Pressure, so that is what worked.

I can see that I am now firmly locked into using cut-out wood pieces for the music. Now, just where I can take this is what has my curiosity. I do have a small change in an earlier opinion: the background does not have to disappear, or even be greatly diminished.  I can see in this artwork that the background is playing an important part in the mood of this work, and that effect cannot be underestimated.

What that means,  is that I will be looking for new, creative ways to bring to life the colors, and shapes applied to the canvases. The background for these artworks, as I see,  are going to make up a large part of my artworks for some time.

Scott Von Holzen