Art of Noise
Updated: Sep 8
"A painting is music you can see, and music is a painting you can hear." - Miles Davis
Back in the 80s, when I was in my early teens, there was a techno-pop band named Art of Noise. I wasn't familiar with most of their music, but there was one song, Moments In Love, that was incredibly popular among my friends. However, it was the band's name that intrigued me the most. What is the art of noise? What would it sound like?
Music is definitely recognized as an art form, but how does it compare to visual art? For me, I've always been really into music. I played the piano and even tried picking up the guitar when I was a teenager. But drawing was my first love, so as a kid, I couldn't help but doodle on everything, just like Harold with his magical purple crayon.
At first blush you may think that music and visual art couldn't be more different. But there are similarities that cannot be denied.
First there is rhythm. There is rhythm to be found in repeated patterns found in both music and visual art (for ease of discussion, I'll be referring to visual simply as 'art' form here on).
Next, there's harmony. In music, it involves playing, singing, or creating various notes at the same time and/or in sequence. Art uses a balance of recurring color, repeated shapes, and lines that may guide the eye to single focal point.
Take my painting, Gaea's Symphony, as an example. It embodies rhythm—the most prominent rhythmic element is the musical staff, which sweeps diagonally across the canvas, moving past the figures and extending beyond the edge. Its curve, rather than just a horizontal movement, imparts a feeling of forward motion to the viewer. The rings around Saturn repeat this circle/curve motif.
As for harmony, the use of contrasting cool and and warm colors provide the strongest example. On the whole, the painting doesn't merely depict music—it suggests that music is woven into the fabric of creation itself.
Then there's my other painting, Music is the Muse (Mistress), which is still a work in progress. The theme of this piece is clearly music. However, there's a fascinating contrast between the two artworks. In Gaea's Symphony, music serves as a link between Earth, planets, humanity, and the cosmos.
In Music is the Muse, music itself is the central focus.
The first asks us to imagine creation as a symphony. The second brings that idea inward and makes music part of the individual. One is cosmic; the other is psychological and intimate.
In the painting displayed at the opening of this article, The Dance by Henri Matisse, the most striking rhythmic element is the circle of dancing figures linked in one continuous sequence. I feel like Gaea's Symphony has some things in common with Matisse's La Danse, even though their rhythms come from different places. In The Dance, rhythm is created by the repeated movement of bodies. In Gaea's Symphony, rhythm comes from the sweeping musical staff, repeating celestial forms, and the eye's journey through the cosmos.
Just before embarking on his Compositions series, abstract artist Wassily Kandinsky said that,
"Music is the ultimate teacher".
He believed that art should be more than just literal representation. To him, music was the perfect example for all creative work because it can express deep emotions without sticking to specific forms.
Honestly, Kandinsky's art seems to vibe more with pure music than mine or Matisse's. He mainly uses the basic elements of art—like color, line, and shape—without sticking to traditional subjects like people. When you look at Composition, it's like you're seeing a jazz piece come to life visually.
Interestingly, Matisse also created a piece called simply Music.
Considered a companion piece to The Dance, it consists simply of gathered figures, some of whom are playing musical instruments. Perhaps they are playing the tune that the figures in The Dance are dancing to.
So now we come full circle when considering the 'art of noise' and how music and visual art relate. Looking back, I think I was asking a much bigger question: Can one art form speak the language of another?
Artists like Henri Matisse and Wassily Kandinsky were all about this idea. Matisse's pieces, Music and The Dance, show off rhythm and harmony with how he arranges the figures, while Kandinsky's abstract pieces are like visual music, using colors, lines, and shapes just like a composer uses notes.
In my own paintings, I explore this concept from another angle. Gaea's Symphony imagines the universe as a musical score, while Music is the Muse suggests that music isn't just something we hear—it becomes a part of us.
Whether it's through sound or paint, both music and visual art rely on rhythm, harmony, movement, and emotion. Maybe that's why the connection between them feels so natural. In the end, painting might just be music that decided to stay silent.
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