'Counterpoint' — A Painting Inspired by Music

'Counterpoint' — A Painting Inspired by Music

The title of this painting refers to the musical technique of counterpoint — the relationship between two or more melodic lines that are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and contour. It is a concept that has long interested me as a painter, because it describes something that painting can do: hold two or more visual elements in productive tension, each one modifying the other without either one dominating.

Music and Painting

The parallels between music and painting have been explored by many artists — Klee and Kandinsky most famously, but also Whistler, who titled his paintings as 'nocturnes' and 'arrangements' to emphasise their musical rather than descriptive character. What these artists recognised is that both arts work through relationships: between tones, between colours, between rhythms and intervals. The meaning is not in any single element but in the space between them.

In 'Counterpoint', the two principal elements are a warm, ochre-toned ground and a series of cooler, darker vertical marks. Neither element is complete without the other; each one defines and is defined by its relationship to the other. The painting is, in this sense, a conversation — two voices in dialogue, neither one resolving into the other.