The Muse of Music: Famous artists who were inspired by sound — Art History Kids (2024)

Like van Gogh, are you comforted by music?

Does music inspire you?

Does music change your mood, or make you more productive?

(I always crank some upbeat music while doing the ironing; it becomes an enjoyable ‘music festival’ rather than an enduring chore.)

Many famous artists have credited music as a muse for their work, while some musicians have revealed that art or an artist has been their inspiration.

American Pop Artist Keith Haring always had a ‘boom box’ playing rap music close by when he was painting a mural or creating art. He loved Run DMC and even designed a sneaker style for the band members to wear.

Pop Star Madonna wore outfits designed by Haring during her some of world tours and promotional events.

French Post-Impressionist Matisse played the violin every day. He appreciated the discipline and focus that it required of him and felt that it helped his concentration for painting.

So too did Russian-French Cubist Marc Chagall. Music was so important to Chagall that the term was the theme of an impressive exhibition of his work at the Montreal Museum of Modern Art in 2017: Chagall: Colour and Music

American Pop Artist Andy Warhol managed and produced music by Avant pop band The Velvet Underground from 1965 to 1967. Warhol also provided artwork for their album covers.

The band became part of Warhol’s multimedia roadshow: Exploding Plastic Inevitable, where the band performed their own songs while Warhol's films played on a wall in the background.

Allegedly, Warhol’s favorite Velvet Underground song was All Tomorrow’s Parties.

listen to it here

Russian abstract artist Wassily Kandinsky was deeply inspired by music. He played the violin from an early age and even gave his works of art musical titles: 'Improvisations', Compositions’, and 'Fugue.'

In his autobiography Reminiscences, Kandinsky reveals the profound effect the music had on him in relation to art at a performance of Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow:

Listen to Wagner’s Lohengrin here. Perhaps play it in the background as it goes for 3 and a half hours!

As well as being inspired by music, van Gogh was the very muse for a touching folk song 81 years after his death. Vincent van Gogh’s love of painting and fragile life was the inspiration for Don McLean’s 1971 song Vincent.

McLean said he was inspired to write the song after reading a biography of van Gogh. The song is beautiful and sad and is so highly valued that even the original handwritten lyrics by McLean were put up at auction for 1.5 million dollars earlier this year.

American Modern artist Georgia O’Keeffe is well known for her large scale cropped flower paintings and cityscapes, but she too understood art had the ability to evoke emotion in the same fashion that music did.

For a time, O’Keeffe was occupied with ‘the idea that music could be translated into something for the eye.” This led to the creation of several abstract works inspired by music including: (left) Music, Pink and Blue No. 2 1918, and Blue and Green Music 1919-1921 (right).

Japanese Pop Artist Yayoi Kusama was friends with Georgia O’Keeffe. When Kusama moved to New York, O’Keeffe introduced her to American art buyers to assist her friend’s profile and livelihood. Like O’Keeffe, Kusama has explored music by way of singing poems she has written which were later incorporated into her Life is The Heart of A Rainbow exhibition.

Furthermore, Kusama’s art was the muse for musician Peter Gabriel’s 1993 video clip Love Town. Gabriel enlisted several visual artists to create original artworks for each of the 11 songs on his 1992 Us album, one of them being Kusama. Click on the link Love Town below to see the obvious Kusama influence in the video and the works of art she created for the album.

Click here to watch Love Town

And finally, we turn to Dutch painter Piet Mondrian who was known to take his love of music and dancing as seriously as he took his painting. When Mondrian lived in Paris, he became an adept ballroom dancer.

After he fled Europe in the wake of World War II for the bustling city of New York, he was immediately captivated by the jazz music and the ‘boogie-woogie’ style of dancing that was popular at the time. He spent time at jazz clubs in Harlem with artistic ‘big wigs’ including Alexander Calder, Peggy Guggenheim, Lee Krasner, Nelly Van Doesburg, and Fernand Léger.

Mondrian translated the energy of the bustling New York City, the intensity of its night life, and the vigour of its beloved Boogie Woogie jazz into his paintings.

Mondrian’s last two works of art even included Boogie Woogie in their titles: Broadway Boogie Woogie, 1942-1943, and the unfinished Victory Boogie Woogie, 1942-1944.

Many art critics and musicians have indicated that these two paintings are a visual form of music in that the grid lines denote rhythm (the beat that holds the music together), while the shape patterns represent the melody: the sequence of single notes of a tune.

Listen to composer Jason Moran explain how Mondrian’s 1942-1943 Broadway Boogie Woogie is actually a jazz score.

Now, over to you!

What music do you love to listen to? Pop? Jazz? Classical? Distorted Rock? EDM?

Grab some sheets of paper, some paints, brushes, or pastels, pencils, or crayons.

Put on your favorite music.

Let the music gently overwhelm you and draw or paint whatever comes to mind on the paper. Let the sounds evoke your creativity.

After a while, pay attention to the constant beat in the song and draw it onto your page. Think about how the single notes in the melody can be stroked onto the paper.

Notice that while you are being stimulated in this creative fashion, you are also relaxing or being revitalised. Allow the art and music fuse together to create something wonderful!

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