The Music of Painting: Music, Modernism and the Visual Arts from the Romantics to John Cage - Hardcover

Vergo, Peter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0714857629 ISBN 13: 9780714857626

Publisher: Phaidon Press, 2010

Synopsis

A sequel to Phaidon's That Divine Order, (2005), which surveyed the relationship between music and the visual arts from ancient times until the mid-eighteenth century, The Music of Painting continues this fascinating study in the period covering the emergence and development of Modernism, c.1850-1950. Composers and artists repeatedly borrowed from one another, yet their motives have seldom been explored. Professor Peter Vergo provides a broad analysis of changes in the character of the analogies drawn at different times, using in his analysis critical and philosophical sources as well as evidence about artistic and musical practice.

Music has inspired some of the most progressive art of our time from the abstract painting of Wassily Kandinsky to the mid-century experimental films of Oskar Pischinger. The most complete examination of this phenomenon to date, The Music of Painting features major works of art plus related documentation, focusing on abstract and mixed-media art forms and their connections to musical forms as varied as classical and jazz.

About this title

About the Author:

Peter Vergo is Professor of Art History and Theory at the University of Essex, and author of That Divine Order and Art in Vienna 1898-1918, both published by Phaidon.

Review:

"A constant source of delight... Immensely informative... with its constantly engaging prose and many illustrations this book is extremely enjoyable as well as thought-provoking."-International Record Review "Lucid and engrossing."-The Independent, "Cross disciplinary to-ing and fro-ing is elegantly orchestrated in this book by Peter Vergo, a must have for anyone interested in why Modernism looks (and sounds) as it does."-Art Quarterly "Scholarly and sizable ... its articulate prose and beautiful presentation [...] make it a worthy contender for your Christmas wish lists."-Muso "Over a long period, Peter Vergo has submitted music and the visual arts to sustained comparative analysis. Often on untrodden ground, for a time the only voice in British scholarship in this field, his work is consistently engaging and enlightening... Vergo teases logical sequences from dense histories - for instance the trajectory of Chopin-Delacroix-Baudelaire-Whistler-Debussy... The range and scope of the two volumes That Divine Order and The Music of Painting is astonishing... Together, these two volumes offer a dictionary of the subject that will be invaluable to scholarship for years to come. This latest study not only makes it clear once and for all the significance of the interchange of the arts, but, I would suggest, casts new light on Modernism itself."-The Burlington Magazine

About this edition

• Publisher: Phaidon Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0714857629
• ISBN 13: 9780714857626
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384