Music and Paintings

What is the single greatest difference between listening to a musical composition and viewing a painting?

I think that the ultimate difference is that within music the listener is connecting to an energy that is alive and that travels in time. This spiritual energy that is threaded within the fragment of time comes to life when the work is performed with musical instruments. This energy is new every time it gets played even if it was played thousands of time , yet it always comes to life with a fresh feeling. Music has within it an awakening of rebirth and a new beginning every time it's performed. Therefore the composer's music and message both come to life at each new performance.

The painting on the other hand stands still, but the messages of the artist comes to life every time a person views it. The painting itself never comes to life again, for it is already painted and it belongs to history. Only it's messages are new with each view.

Summery:

Composer’s Message + Spiritual Energy + Time = Music

Painter’s Message + Time = Painting.

A painting lacks the spiritual energy that is created while the piece of art is performed.

Thus the semi Zenith of the difference is:

Music = Can be performed thus experienced.

Painting = Can’t be performed therefore can’t be experienced , a viewer can only get the message of the artist but can never experience it.

The Total Zenith of the Difference:

Music = can be experienced by others besides the composer.

Painting = can only be experienced by the artist.

What is the single greatest difference between listening to a musical composition and viewing a painting?

I think that the ultimate difference is that within music the listener is connecting to an energy that is alive and that travels in time. This spiritual energy that is threaded within the fragment of time comes to life when the work is performed with musical instruments. This energy is new every time it gets played even if it was played thousands of time , yet it always comes to life with a fresh feeling. Music has within it an awakening of rebirth and a new beginning every time it's performed. Therefore the composer's music and message both come to life at each new performance.

The painting on the other hand stands still, but the messages of the artist comes to life every time a person views it. The painting itself never comes to life again, for it is already painted and it belongs to history. Only it's messages are new with each view.

Summery:

Composer

A painting lacks the spiritual energy that is created while the piece of art is performed.

Painting = Can’t be performed therefore can’t be experienced , a viewer can only get the message of the artist but can never experience it.

Are you serious?

The act of creation lacks spiritual energy...

Paintings can't evoke emotion?!

Are you bonkers?!

I'm not even going to bother.

This is an observation.

No need to get so agitated.

You can speak about it, tell me how my opinion is wrong.

It's wrong because you're final statement is wrong. A painting can be experienced by other people other than the artist (among other things i disagree with that you've written)

I feel that the only true difference is that music occupies time, while painting occupies space. Mutatis mutandis, everything else seems similar. Even the performance issue.

what the heck is the point of posting something so stupid and illogical?

Look, you cannot possibly hope to speak for the thousands if not millions of people out there on this matter. This theory is utterly ridiculous, An artist has his own reasons for painting or drawing a picture, most of the time, it is to express something. Or it's to show people something from their creative genius that they think is lovely. To say that painting and art can only be expierenced by the artist is the stupidest and most un-thought out thing I've ever heard.

I rest my case

It's wrong because you're final statement is wrong. A painting can be experienced by other people other than the artist (among other things i disagree with that you've written)

I agree. Anyone who paints/draws and/or loves fine art would find the question facile. Of course one experiences visual art - it is a means of communicating (at one level or another) just as music is.

I'm not sure I exactly dissagree with Sauls...

but the thing is that music and the connection with time (and the other arts, like ballet, theater, cinema) can be a defect, rather than an advantage. But of course in this age of DVDs and HQ, and mp3, the time issues tends to exting... (sorry for the bad spelling)...

Your last statement takes much discussion, probably because your phrasing is all messed up with the "experience" word. I can have a picture, any picture in front of it and experience seeing it. The experience is different, but it is still experience...

Sauls, have you ever considered the different types of experience between a performer and the audience? Could it be that the audience is passively experiencing, exactly like watching a movie or a painting, while the performers are actively (re)creating art, same as the composer and the artist?

I find this thread fascianting, because of the first post. As long as Mendy stays out of the discussion (hihi) I'll be here to discsuss... :D

However:

What is the single greatest difference between listening to a musical composition and viewing a painting?

Your starting point, is kidna numb. Let me change 2 words and see how you think of it then:

"What is the single greatest difference between tasting an orange juice and flying on an airoplane?" (didn't keep the number of words, sorry).

Music <> art (painting I mean). Period!

Still, I stand by the fact that this is highly interesting to me. :)

to turn this around...

1. A painting (or sculpture or other visual art) is perfect from the moment of its completion. Therefore, the "audience" perceives the artwork in its most perfect state.

2. While a piece of music may be perfect in its creator's mind, but a performance might NOT render that perfection. Therefore, the "audience" might be perceiving the artwork in a flawed state.

1a. Visual arts are perceived as single entities by multitudes of people.. their existance is "perfect", the artist's expression is always perfectly frozen into it.

2a. Music requires the filtering act of "performance" by an intermediary - the musician - who in turn can alter the creator's expression, making the musical artwork perceived by multitudes become a different work in reality.

1b. The visual artist creates something tangible, he/she is fully aware on the same level as the eventual viewer of that artwork of exactly what the artwork represents (the sensory impact is the same).

2b. the composer has an idealized version of his artwork in his mind's ear, which the audience MIGHT be lucky enough to hear through a perfect performace, but is most likely NOT going to hear because of the reality of the entire concept of "intermediary intrusion" into the expression of the end product of the artwork in question.

Well, don't you think your way of thinking is already biased, taking in consideration that you are a musician, as opposed to being a painter?

What IS the point of comparing two arts anyway. Neither art is "better" or "worse". They are different.

What's more, you compare these two totally different things. A composer writes the score. The score, no matter how many times is looked at, gives out no feeling at all. It has to be performed. And the composition has no meaning as "music" if there are no performers/conductors to perform the piece.

What the painter did, on the other hand, is analogous to writing, performing and conducting each and every one instrument of the "piece" for himself, but just once, and perfectly, just the way he wanted it to be heard, and he made sure this "recording" was heard by everyone and for ever (compared to the average human lifetime).

If we were to compare a painting to a music composition, it would only be possible if the painter had, instead, written a very detailed set of instructions explaining how one should paint his painting, and there would be many "paintings", but only one "set of instructions". This way, there are many "recordings" but only one "score". Since this is not the way it is, though, there is no point in having such an argument.

Your whole "logical proof" that music is superior (because it contains "spiritual energy" while paintings do not) is actually a big logical fallacy.

Take care and have a nice day.

Well, don't you think your way of thinking is already biased, taking in consideration that you are a musician, as opposed to being a painter?

What IS the point of comparing two arts anyway. Neither art is "better" or "worse". They are different.

What's more, you compare these two totally different things. A composer writes the score. The score, no matter how many times is looked at, gives out no feeling at all. It has to be performed. And the composition has no meaning as "music" if there are no performers/conductors to perform the piece.

What the painter did, on the other hand, is analogous to writing, performing and conducting each and every one instrument of the "piece" for himself, but just once, and perfectly, just the way he wanted it to be heard, and he made sure this "recording" was heard by everyone and for ever (compared to the average human lifetime).

If we were to compare a painting to a music composition, it would only be possible if the painter had, instead, written a very detailed set of instructions explaining how one should paint his painting, and there would be many "paintings", but only one "set of instructions". This way, there are many "recordings" but only one "score". Since this is not the way it is, though, there is no point in having such an argument.

Your whole "logical proof" that music is superior (because it contains "spiritual energy" while paintings do not) is actually a big logical fallacy.

Take care and have a nice day.

There is no sense of creation in a painting. But in music the work is created every time its performed. Thus the work is experienced a fresh.

I certainly won't debate the differences between visual and audio arts. Of course they're different, in both how they're executed and how they're perceived and experienced.

But I do have a problem with statements like:

A painting lacks the spiritual energy that is created while the piece of art is performed.

There is no sense of creation in a painting.

Why do people ignorant on a particular subject insist on passing such lofty judgement and sweeping generalizations!?

No sense of creation?

What are you talking about!!

I assume you have an even lesser view of photography? All they do is push a button right? Not much 'creation' or 'spiritual energy' there...

...

BAH! *throws hands up is despair* ...I can't handle this!

Whoops!

Hold on!

Sauls, you are actually claiming that music is better than visual art?

OMG!

If this is the case, I'm out of this thread. Honestly answer me! Casue I was probably too naive in my previous post...

I was just pointing out some differences between the arts.

Chill out, I used to attend art school , and I can draw and paint very well, so I have nothing against visual art.

But I do consider music as a greater art then paintings.

...I used to attend art school...But I do consider music as a greater art then paintings.

I just find it hard to believe that someone with some background and training in the visual and musical arts can believe that one is superior than the others...

I guess you can look at a painting and are incapable of deriving some 'feeling' or 'emotion'; of sensing the 'spiritual energy' put in... just seems a vacant and sterile way of appreciating art...

Jackson Pollock said (I like Pollock, can you tell?) "

But, how you aproach it is your prerogative, and I really don't care...

I was just pointing out some differences between the arts.

Chill out, I used to attend art school , and I can draw and paint very well, so I have nothing against visual art.

But I do consider music as a greater art then paintings.

Sauls,

Honestly you appear to be a completely close minded person!

I'm stunned by the last sentence.

That's all from me in this thread. Unless some new spark comes in that is...

Sauls,

Honestly you appear to be a completely close minded person!

I'm stunned by the last sentence.

That's all from me in this thread. Unless some new spark comes in that is...

Music is on a much higher level. Its spiritual.

....

Music is on a much higher level. Its spiritual.

:shifty: okaaaaaaay...

Can you give us some other explanation other than "music is spiritual" and "music can be experienced fresh with each performance".

I mean each time an individual sees a painting it IS being experienced fresh and even if someone saw it again it would be different. As robinjessome said, artwork can be viewed and have no feeling derived from it but I mean...SO CAN MUSIC!

Every form of art has potential to affect people emotionally and to leave others completely unmoved, music, paintings, plays, poetry the whole lot. But this is one of the few aspects they truly share, you can't compare them, they're not the same!

You cannot state an opinion such as "music is better than visual arts because of spiritual energy" as a fact, it is illogical to do so.

Honestly, I feel that that Saul is joking. I mean he's taking our answers somewhere in the net and LOLing his arse off or something thinking "how could this people ever think that I'm being serious?"

Ah well...

Well we can always hope that's true

I would have to say that paintings and music are uncomparable. Their greatest difference is that they two completely different forms of art. While a painting may try convey a piece of music, it will never reach the state of being completely able to describe it. The same thing I believe is true vice versa. While one form of art may inspire a piece of music (for example, Rachminov's Isle of the Dead), the piece of music will never be able to fully descibe it.

Can you give us some other explanation other than "music is spiritual" and "music can be experienced fresh with each performance".

I mean each time an individual sees a painting it IS being experienced fresh and even if someone saw it again it would be different. As robinjessome said, artwork can be viewed and have no feeling derived from it but I mean...SO CAN MUSIC!

Every form of art has potential to affect people emotionally and to leave others completely unmoved, music, paintings, plays, poetry the whole lot. But this is one of the few aspects they truly share, you can't compare them, they're not the same!

You cannot state an opinion such as "music is better than visual arts because of spiritual energy" as a fact, it is illogical to do so.

Music has many great qualities.

When the Temple of Jerusalem stood in its glory there were a group of people called the 'Levim'. Among their many tasks, they were the Temple's musicians.

There was a whole orchestra and choir with different instruments such as violins, harps, drums, trumpets and they played and sang songs of praise to G-d. Thus , music was used as a connecting language between people and their creator. Music strikes a deep spiritual message that is understood by the soul. The human being is divided into physical and spiritual. The physical part enjoys all things that are physical. The spiritual part enjoys the spiritual. The essence of music is spiritual, there is nothing in it physical, therefore when the soul comes in contact with music, it derives great pleasure from it because both of them are spiritual.

The painting on the other hand is physical, only its message or meaning is spiritual. With music , the soul doesn’t have to go through the physical part in order to get a message or meaning to enjoy it. Right there and then as soon as the melody begins, even the simplest of tunes has the power to ignite the soul with pleasure and harmony. That is why you have little babies enjoying music and are very responsive to a pretty melody. They don’t understand the music. They don’t know what the composer wrote the music about. The music transcends meaning, wisdom and knowledge and goes right to the soul. Music is the most direct and universal language where you don’t have to understand in art in order to "get" it. Music demands very little , all you have to do is listen and you enjoy it right away.

There is no sense of creation in a painting. But in music the work is created every time its performed. Thus the work is experienced a fresh.

You insult me, I myself am an artist. To say there is no sense of creation in art is ludicrous, what are you doing when you draw something? You are Creating something new