Why Classical Music Still Matters. Discover More! Courses, Collections and Musical Jewels. When the San Diego Art Museum hosted an exhibition of works by the Spanish Master Joaquin Sorolla back in the late 80s, I remember seeing large canvases -- life size -- of figures that he painted on the beach.
They were studies for other, larger major works. My point is this: despite the challenges of daily life, these artists forged ahead and put in the kind of real study that produces the kind of results that only the truly dedicated deserve. If anything, we need to work harder to even come close to what they were able to do, since most of us lack the rigorous training that went into a classical art education so common to those who came before us.
A good place to start would be from your field studies and photo references. Couple these aids with some thumbnail sketches to zero in on the best composition for the dimensions of the canvas you have chosen and then move on to a more finished sketch or a series of sketches in charcoal.
This preliminary work will go a long way in aiding your understanding of the various problems associated in depicting the scene you have chosen. Once you have worked through these challenges and feel confident that you know your subject you can start in on the finished piece, painting with gusto and bravura. In this way you can experience the joy and freedom of expression you felt in the field and the viewer will sense that as well. This kind of painting is created out of dedicated study, along with a rush of adrenalin and pure excitement.
There is no formula here, except the time you take to know your subject. Keep the feature going by making a tax-deductible contribution.
March Published by Artists of Utah. We are a music-making species — always have been, always will be. We are also a music- exchanging species: long before lovesick teenagers started curating mixtapes for each other, or digital streaming services enabled us to swap favourite tracks, we were communicating and connecting through music.
It is an impulse that is still fundamental to who we are. Yet our own modern lives are frazzled and fragmented to an unprecedented degree. Who, seriously, has the luxury of making time each day to actively listen to a particular piece of music? Perhaps, though, we have never needed more urgently the emotional space that music — and classical music in particular — can provide.
I never go to the gym, no matter how noble my intentions. I basically run on coffee and sugar. I always leave my tax return until the deadline. Each year, I set annual expectations that I fail utterly to stick to — and become increasingly stressed out as a result. The miserable month of January is the perfect time to dive in to a new sonic soundscape Credit: Getty. Yet it turns out that even I have the self-discipline to eke out a few minutes each day to stick on my headphones, listen to a single piece of music, and be transformed.
Classical music is unique in its ability to compel us towards deep introspection. Any single performance of classical music has the capacity to be a life-altering event by shaping or reshaping our worldview and forcing us to consider or reconsider deeply-held truths. In short, it has the capacity to change who we are at the most fundamental level. This is because classical music is language in the most fundamental sense of the word. Language, of course, consists of inflections—of phrases, commas, and periods.
In the crescendos and decrescendos of music we find inflections, in the breaths of music we find human breaths, in the pauses in music we find commas, and between sections or movements, we find periods. Classical music is the quintessence of direct and clear communication, and of the expression of those things which transcend language. Classical music, above all, aims to communicate, to express certain universal truths—truths shared by every conscious being across the cosmos, truths that can not be otherwise ascertained or, perhaps, even approached.
It aims to express the ineffable and allows us to feel emotions in such a deep, meaningful way as to transform the way we experience and process the world.
Classical music is a reflection of the human spirit, reflecting our deepest worries, revealing our most private thoughts: showing us our anger, our sadness, our deepest fears, our most exultant joys.
Classical music deals with every imaginable theme and every possible situation. It is a shame, then, that the popular perception of classical music is that it is dead and non-inclusive—a floundering, writhing mass left as the discarded dregs of the 19th-century European ideal.
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