Georgia O’Keeffe was a pioneering American artist known for her bold, imaginative paintings of natural forms and landscapes. She is perhaps best known for her iconic large-scale flower paintings, featuring enlarged blossoms and petals that verge on abstraction. Though she is mostly associated with paintings of flowers, O’Keeffe explored a diverse range of subjects over her prolific seven-decade career, including cityscapes, animal bones, rocks, shells, trees, and more.
One of the lesser-known aspects of O’Keeffe’s body of work are her paintings related to music and sound. Though she is not primarily known as a musical artist, music and sound featured prominently in O’Keeffe’s life and informed her unique visual language. She created a series of abstract paintings inspired by visual interpretations of music, as well as incorporating musical themes and imagery into other works.
O’Keeffe’sConnection to Music and Sound
Music played an integral role in O’Keeffe’s creative development from an early age. She grew up in a very musical household in Wisconsin where family members often played and sang together. Her mother was a pianist who gave O’Keeffe piano lessons as a child. Though she did not pursue music as a career, O’Keeffe maintained a deep appreciation for and connection to music throughout her life.
Later in life, O’Keeffe frequented the opera and symphony in New York with her photographer husband Alfred Stieglitz. She was drawn to and captivated by the visual power of live musical performance. O’Keeffe also found inspiration in the rural sounds of the American southwest, from birdsong to rushing rivers, which she incorporated into her paintings of the region. Music remained an enduring muse for O’Keeffe, driving experiments in abstraction, form, and color throughout her career.
Blue and Green Music Series
In 1921, O’Keeffe created a series of three paintings entitled Blue and Green Music, Red and Orange Music, and Orange and Red Music. These abstract compositions exemplify O’Keeffe’s visual interpretations of musical ideas. The painting Blue and Green Music features bold blocks of blue, green, and black color layered over a light tan background. The shapes seem to float and vibrate against each other in a balancing act that evokes musical harmony and rhythm.
O’Keeffe was likely inspired to create these paintings after attending a performance of the jazz opera Blue Monday by George Gershwin in 1922. The lively rhythms and pulsing energy of jazz music captivated O’Keeffe’s imagination. She sought to capture her experience and emotional response to hearing jazz music in abstract visual form. The Music paintings portray O’Keeffe’s impression of the melodies, moods, and rhythms she perceived in music through color, shape, line, and texture.
| Painting Title | Year | Medium | Dimensions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blue and Green Music | 1921 | Oil on canvas | 40 x 27 in |
| Red and Orange Music | 1919 | Oil on canvas | 40 x 27 in |
| Orange and Red Music | 1919 | Oil on canvas | 40 x 27 in |
Themes and Style of Blue and Green Music
The title Blue and Green Music provides some hints about O’Keeffe’s intentions with this abstract composition. Blue and green are cool, tranquil colors that evoke a sense of harmony and flow. The blue shapes in the painting resemble notes and musical bars floating through the canvas. Green swirls and patterns provide rhythm and movement. O’Keeffe balances the blue and green with interspersed blocks of black and tan, creating contrast and visual interest.
The overall effect is of a calm, resonating musical composition translated into color and form. The wave-like shapes have a soothing, flowing quality, perhaps representing the smooth melodies and textures O’Keeffe perceived within the music. At the same time, the intersecting geometric shapes convey a syncopated, almost percussive visual rhythm. O’Keeffe combines fluid, organic forms with angular lines to visually communicate her experience listening to jazz and modern music.
Interpretations and Analysis
Art critics and historians have put forth several interpretations regarding the possible meanings and influences behind O’Keeffe’s Blue and Green Music. Some believe it represents a visual translation of Wassily Kandinsky’s musical theory and synesthetic approach to abstraction. Kandinsky, a pioneering abstract artist, posited connections between color, shape, and music in his 1911 book Concerning the Spiritual in Art. His ideas likely inspired O’Keeffe’s abstract interpretations of music.
The black shapes may reference musical notes or instruments, while the intersecting blocks and strips evoke rhythms and spatial dynamics. The balance between blue, green, tan, and black creates a harmonious color chord. O’Keeffe builds up intersecting and overlapping forms to construct a visual representation of a musical composition. Every color and shape relates to the whole in her uniquely abstract but evocative language of color and form.
Significance and Legacy
While O’Keeffe is not prominently recognized as a pioneer of abstract art, works such as Blue and Green Music demonstrate her early embrace of abstraction as a means of emotional expression. At a time when many Americans still considered abstraction too avant-garde, O’Keeffe’s bold, colorful explorations of music in purely abstract forms were quite progressive.
Paintings like Blue and Green Music show O’Keeffe finding her artistic voice by distilling her perceptions, memories, and emotions into vibrant color harmonies and dynamic compositions. Her visual translations of musical motifs presage later developments in abstract expressionism and synesthetic art. O’Keeffe’s Music paintings remain some of the purest expressions of her groundbreaking approach to abstraction. Their designs continue to inspire artists seeking to convey the intangible essence of music through color, shape and form.
Conclusion
Georgia O’Keeffe’s Blue and Green Music exemplifies her talent for translating sound into vision. Inspired by jazz and modernist music, O’Keeffe expressed her emotional and sensory response to hearing music by crafting this symphony of colors and shapes. Cool blue and green tones evoke calming, resonant harmonies while alternating blocks suggest rhythmic visual beats. O’Keeffe pioneered pure abstraction as a means to communicate intangible artistic concepts like music. Blue and Green Music stands as an important early work in O’Keeffe’s exploration of synesthesia and music in visual art. Almost a century after its creation, it remains a compelling expression of the connections between art and music.