The idea of founding a theory of painting after the model of
music theory
Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the " rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (k ...
was suggested by
Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as tr ...
in 1807 and gained much regard among the avant-garde artists of the 1920s, the
Weimar culture
Weimar culture was the emergence of the arts and sciences that happened in Germany during the Weimar Republic, the latter during that part of the interwar period between Germany's defeat in World War I in 1918 and Hitler's rise to power in 193 ...
period, like
Paul Klee
Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented ...
.
From Goethe to Klee
Goethe famously said in 1807 that painting "lacks any established, accepted theory as exists in music".
[ Moshe Barasch (2000) ]
Theories of art – from impressionism to Kandinsky
', part IV 'Abstract art', chap. 'Color' pp. 332–3 Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj; – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...
in 1911 reprised Goethe, agreeing that painting needed a solid foundational theory, and such theory should be patterned after the model of music theory,
and adding that there is a deep relationship between all the arts, not only between music and painting.
The comparison of painting with music gained much regard among the avant-garde artists of the 1920s, the
Weimar culture
Weimar culture was the emergence of the arts and sciences that happened in Germany during the Weimar Republic, the latter during that part of the interwar period between Germany's defeat in World War I in 1918 and Hitler's rise to power in 193 ...
period, like
Paul Klee
Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented ...
.
[ Marcel Franciscono ''Paul Klee: His Work and Thought'', part 6 'The Bauhaus and Düsseldorf', chap. 'Klee's theory courses', p. 246 and under 'notes to pages 245–54' p. 365]
Structural semantic rhetoric
The Belgian semioticians known under the name ''
Groupe µ
A group is a military unit or a military formation that is most often associated with military aviation.
Air and aviation groups
The terms group and wing differ significantly from one country to another, as well as between different branches o ...
'', developed a method of painting research called
structural semantic rhetoric; the aim of this method is to determine the stylistic and aesthetic features of any painting by means of the
rhetorical operations
In classical rhetoric, figures of speech are classified as one of the four fundamental rhetorical operations or ''quadripartita ratio'': addition (adiectio), omission (detractio), permutation (immutatio) and transposition (transmutatio).
Classi ...
of addition, omission, permutation and transposition.
Jean-Marie Klinkenberg
Jean-Marie Klinkenberg (born 8 October 1944) is a Belgian linguist and semiotician, professor at the State University of Liège, born in Verviers ( Belgium) in 1944. Member of the interdisciplinary Groupe µ. President of the International Ass ...
et al. (Groupe µ
A group is a military unit or a military formation that is most often associated with military aviation.
Air and aviation groups
The terms group and wing differ significantly from one country to another, as well as between different branches o ...
) (1980) ''Plan d'une rhétorique de l'image'', pp. 249–68
See also
*
Aesthetics of music
Aesthetics of music () is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of art, beauty and taste in music, and with the creation or appreciation of beauty in music. In the pre-modern tradition, the aesthetics of music or musical aesthetics expl ...
*
Philosophy of music
Philosophy of music is the study of "fundamental questions about the nature of music and our experience of it".Andrew Kania,The Philosophy of Music, ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', Spring 2014 edition, edited by Edward N. Zalta. The p ...
*
Synesthesia in art The phrase synesthesia in art has historically referred to a wide variety of artists' experiments that have explored the co-operation of the senses (e.g. seeing and hearing; the word synesthesia is from the Ancient Greek σύν (syn), "together," an ...
*
Visual semiotics
Visual semiotics is a sub-domain of semiotics that analyses the way visual images communicate a message.
Studies of meaning evolve from semiotics, a philosophical approach that seeks to interpret messages in terms of signs and patterns of symboli ...
Notes
References
*Kandinsky
911
911 or 9/11 may refer to:
Dates
* AD 911
* 911 BC
* September 11
** 9/11, the September 11 attacks of 2001
** 11 de Septiembre, Chilean coup d'état in 1973 that outed the democratically elected Salvador Allende
* November 9
Numbers
* 911 ...
''Concerning the Spiritual in Art'', chapter ''The language of form and colour'' pp. 27–45
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Painting