Musicalism

also: musicalisme

movement founded 1932 France Europe

Musicalism (French: musicalisme) was a French abstract art movement founded in 1932 by Henry Valensi with Charles Blanc-Gatti, Gustave Bourgogne and Vittorio Straquadaini. Its painters used colour for its vibration - Valensi spoke of "sentimental resonances" - composing hues and forms in space the way a musician arranges sound in time. For Valensi colour and sound were both vibrations of matter, and the painter worked in the spiritual state of a composer, titling successful canvases preludes, fugues and symphonies. The movement announced itself in the journal Comœdia in April 1932 and held twenty-three "musical salons" at the galerie Renaissance in Paris, with related salons across Europe; František Kupka, Ossip Zadkine and Robert Mallet-Stevens were among those who joined. Pushing the picture into time, Valensi spent decades on his "cinépeinture" (film-painting) La Symphonie printanière, completed in 1959.

Wall Art of native men playing musical instruments
Wall Art of native men playing musical instrumentsCC BY-SA 4.0 (credit: Maame1Yaa) · source

Defining characteristics

  • Colour treated as vibration: hues chosen for sensory and emotional resonance, not description
  • Composition modelled on music — forms and colours synchronized in space like sound arranged in time
  • Non-figurative abstraction: the canvas as a field of rhythm, counterpoint and tempo
  • Dynamism drawn from Cubism and Futurism, with movement itself as the subject
  • Musical titles and structure: works framed as preludes, fugues and symphonies
  • The picture extended into time through "cinépeinture", animated film built from paintings and drawings

Key figures

  • Henry Valensi (1883-1960) — Founder and theorist of musicalism; painter and filmmaker behind the cinépeinture La Symphonie printanière
  • Charles Blanc-Gatti (1890-1966) — Swiss painter and co-founder of the movement in 1932
  • František Kupka (1871-1957) — Czech pioneer of abstraction who joined the musicalist salons
  • Ossip Zadkine (1888-1967) — Sculptor of the School of Paris who took part in the movement

Example works

  • La Symphonie printanière (Spring Symphony) — Henry Valensi (1959)
  • Le musicalisme — Henry Valensi (1936)

Sources

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