At the end of the 19th century the
French impressionist painters were creating art that was misunderstood and
mostly ignored by the public.
Debussy and his contemporaries, on the other
hand, enjoyed great popular success. The unmitigated popularity that
impressionistic art enjoys today contrasts starkly with the relative obscurity
to which impressionistic music has been relegated.
Despite Debussy´s desire to separate music from excessive
romanticism and academia, perhaps it is still necessary to learn his musical
language in order to appreciate his music. To the uninitiated ear
the musical elements are difficult to navigate. This is contrasted
by the immediacy of impressionistic art – artists strove to depict the world
simply as they saw it – to paint what was there, without added layers of
emotion or academic understanding.
Ease of understanding
Perhaps as a society we respond more easily to
visual art. We can each look at a painting of a water lily and
appreciate the beautiful use of colour, or look a little closer and delight in
the masterful treatment of water.
However, there need not be much more effort made –
the paintings of the French impressionists can be appreciated simply for their
beauty and skill. To enjoy the colour palette used or the bucolic
natural scenes depicted, the observer does not necessarily need to be
conversant with the contemporary artistic terms, ideology or traditions –
sometimes a picture is just a picture – pleasing to the eye and divorced from
excessive intellect.
The society for which Debussy and his
contemporaries were writing was much better versed in the traditions of the art
music of the day – far more than the average 21st century
listener. Today classical music competes with all kinds of popular
music and other ‘easier’ kinds of entertainment.
The works of the impressionist composers are far
from arcane, but neither have they enjoyed the popularization that the
contemporary visual art has. At school not many of my fellow
undergraduates had even heard of Debussy; certainly his orchestral works were
not present in their CD collections like the Monet reproductions that adorned
their walls.
An ephemeral experience
Both impressionistic art and music were born of the
same reaction to tradition and the desire to create something new. Although
it might take some getting used to, listening to Debussy’s La
Mer evokes images of the sea and light dappling the waves,
much as many of Monet’s Giverny water lily paintings do. The interplay of
shimmering harmonies in the music is mirrored by subtle shading and a surface
ornamentation present in the paintings.
Beauty and a celebration of the natural world; this
is what I take away from the impressionist movement that has so elegantly
changed our sense of artistic aesthetic and influenced the way we experience
our world.
(This is the next in a series created for the Fuschia Tree's
art magazine, Artitude, exploring the inter-relatedness of art and music.)
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