AT THE EXPRESSIONIST exhibition, currently showing in London’s Tate Modern until the 20th of October 2024, I was suddenly reminded of something that I did in the last three months of 1963. During those months, my father was a visiting academic in the economics department of the University of Chicago. I spent that period as a pupil in the University of Chicago’s Laboratory School. It was in that time that President John F Kennedy was assassinated.
Once a week, we had a lesson during which the teacher played us a recording of classical music – some Beethoven, for example. Each of us students were given a large sheet of white paper and some coloured crayons. While the music was playing, we could draw whatever the music inspired us to do. I cannot recall what I drew, but I do remember these lessons.
Kandinsky and his siblings
Today, the 15th of July 2024, we visited the Expressionist exhibition at the Tate Modern. In one small room, there was music by Arnold Schoenberg playing in the background. There was also a photograph (taken about 1888) of the artist Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) playing chamber music with his two siblings. Opposite the photograph, I saw a framed painting created by Wassily Kandinsky in 1911. It is called “Impression III (Concert)”. He painted it after hearing a concert of music by Arnold Schoenberg. This painting was his response to the music.
It was seeing this painting by Kandinsky that reminded me of our music-inspired art sessions in Chicago back in 1963.
yamey 