Art and Music: Illuminating an Extraordinary Connection

In 1911 the painter Wassily Kandinsky attended a concert of Arnold Schoenberg's music that directly inspired him to make a painting, and to write a letter to the composer. Schoenberg answered him immediately, and a continuing correspondence and friendship ensued. The groundbreaking exhibition "Schoenberg, Kandinsky, and the Blue Rider," now at the Jewish Museum through February 12, has as its major theme the shared affinities of these two giants of 20th-century modernism. The paradigmatic Kandinsky-Schoenberg relationship dramatically illustrates the close connection possible across disciplines. Indeed, this is the first show I have ever seen to be reviewed concurrently by both the music and art critics in the same issue of The New York Times (Friday, October 24, 2003).

Wassily Kandinsky: Little Painting With Yellow (Improvisation) (1914), oil on canvas, Philadelphia Museum of Art. (© 2003 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris.)

Kandinsky's Impression III Concert, a nearly abstract oil painting, dominates Room A. Interestingly, the curators here include reproductions of two sketches leading up to the painting. These give some insight into Kandinsky's working methods, as the first is somewhat representational, featuring a piano, some string musicians, and an audience. The second sketch reduces objective reality, and the final painting retains mere traces of piano and audience. Color (which Kandinsky compared to musical tone) and line are dominating forces. Correspondingly, the museum displays Schoenberg's musical sketches, culminating in his String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10 (1907-08). Here we see a clear affinity in the working methods of the two artistic fields.

A case in the next room contains Kandinsky's original letter to Schoenberg, dated January 18, 1911. Among other things, Kandinsky writes, "… the independent life of the individual voices in your compositions is exactly what I am trying to find in my paintings." And he adds the now-famous statement that "'today's' dissonance in painting and music is merely the consonance of 'tomorrow.'" In this same room, some early works by Kandinsky demonstrate these principles. While not directly related to the music, they share Schoenberg's spirit, and we can see how Schoenberg's "emancipation of dissonance" is conceptually related to Kandinsky's abandonment of subject matter. The move is well illustrated by the juxtaposition of a few early landscapes to more abstract paintings. For example, the gemlike Murnau With Church I (1910)—a small, colorful painting still possessing recognizable features such as trees, a tower, houses and sky—can be compared to Improvisation 7 (Storm), also from 1910, a painting similar in feeling, but now devoid of overt recognizable objects. Colors and patterns dictate in all these early Kandinsky paintings, regardless of subject matter.

Gabriele Münter: Jawlensky and Werefkin (1908-09), oil on cardboard, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich. (© 2003 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.)

Schoenberg himself painted seriously from about 1908 to 1912. Although it is his music rather than his painting that relates most directly to Kandinsky, it is fascinating to see so many of his visual works. In the next room, we are introduced to Schoenberg's paintings, including nine self-portraits, two Visions of Christ, two caricatures, and several Gazes and disembodied limbs. On one wall we can watch as Schoenberg studies his own features over and over again, usually faithfully, but finally transforming them into a face of Christ. Not unlike other misunderstood, despised creators, Schoenberg clearly identified with Christ as a martyr, both in several paintings and in musical pieces such as Pierrot Lunaire (1912). Born Jewish, the composer converted to Protestantism in 1898, much later reconverting to Judaism during the Nazi era. Critics and audience alike often jeered at Schoenberg and rejected his music. In retaliation, in one painting he tore apart a "music critic," depicting him with huge bat "ears" that do not hear, and in another, an art critic or patron with unseeing eyes. His haunting Gazes are reminiscent of Edvard Munch's iconic Scream, of 1890. However—as he himself, in a truly terrifying statement, once said—his art was completely independent of and contrary to the nature of a real painter. "A painter grasps with one look the whole person—I, only his soul." In this and other rooms, you can listen to music by Schoenberg and his contemporaries on your Acoustiguide (free of charge), while watching the composer watch you. Unlike the Times' art critic, who advised listening with eyes closed, I wholeheartedly recommend looking and listening at the same time. Otherwise, you miss the point.

The central room takes us into the colorful world of the Blue Rider, the group of artists led by Kandinsky with whom Schoenberg exhibited in 1911. Their styles vary widely, but all take as point of departure what Kandinsky referred to as "the spiritual in art." These artists placed a strong emphasis on inner meaning primarily through color, suppressing any superficial details. Here we see paintings by famous and lesser-known artists of the group. I was particularly happy to see three paintings by Gabriele Münter, Kandinsky's companion of many years. Joyous, colorful, and unpretentious, these are not often exhibited. It is also in this room that we see some of Kandinsky's greatest works, such as the sketch for Composition V (1911) and a study for Composition VII (1913).

Arnold Schoenberg: Red Gaze (1910), oil on cardboard, Arnold Schoenberg Center, Vienna. (© 1985 Belmont Music Publishers.)

Room E, labeled "Musical Interludes," features full-length, more straightforward, and somewhat amateurish portraits by Schoenberg of Alban Berg, Alexander von Zemlinsky, Gustav Mahler, and others—but also, most interestingly, studies for stage settings (never used, as far as I could discover) for Erwartung, his 1909 monodrama, and Die Glückliche Hand (1910-13). These are invaluable for the insights they give us into his conceptions of "Gesamtkunstwerk" and his thinking processes in general, across boundaries.

The last two rooms, called "Abstraction" and "Exile," feature one later Kandinsky painting and documentation about the dissolution of the Kandinsky-Schoenberg friendship. The exhibition raises a provocative question about a possible connection between both artists' post-War transitions. Both moved away from a relatively free method of composing (Schoenberg's Expressionist and atonal works and Kandinsky's more biomorphic, free-style "improvisations") about the same time after World War I to more stringent organization. In some ways Schoenberg's invention of "12-tone" or "serial" music can be seen to parallel Kandinsky's more geometric style of the 1920s through '40s. Perhaps both experienced the universal need to turn to control after the chaos of the World War.

In conclusion, the exhibition, in addition to illuminating the nature of interdisciplinarity, provides a rare opportunity to see many Schoenberg paintings and numbers of first-class Kandinskys, as well as some of the lesser-known Blue Rider works.

The Jewish Museum is at 1109 Fifth Avenue (at 92nd Street). Hours are Sunday-Wednesday, 11 a.m.-5:45 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m.-8 p.m.; and Friday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Visitors can pay what they wish on Thursdays from 5-8 p.m.

Art historian Greta Berman has been on the liberal arts faculty since 1979.