Reflections on "Visual Media"

My first impression of the exhibit "Visual Music" at the Hishhorn Museum, oooh cool look at the lights. I wasn't actually sure that I was going to be able to comprehend everything that was going to be displayed. Yet as we took the time to explain the motive behind each movement of art, as well as the techniques used to create it a light slowly came on. As my professor said at the beginning of a music theory class, "music is perhaps the most concise language of emotions ever invented." Whether or not a piece of music is performed well or not, it is hard for the audience not to have an emotional reaction to it. Even when a parent protests a child selection of music and deems it as noise, there was a reaction. With visual art, however it seems easier to ignore, or to look over. In this exhibit visual artists tried through various means to evoke the same kind of response music has with a primarily visual medium. The different pieces addressed the several parts of music, as almost presenting an autopsy of a particularly moving symphony. A couple of traditional canvas, or paper and paint pieces addressed aspects of music such as form, movement, texture, color (timbre). Other pieces incorporated sound with moving images or the absence of sounds with moving images. Each work tries to convey an elemental, emotional response. Some pieces were more effective immediately than others, but each upon closer inspection, began to communicate the ever-elusive essence of music.