Music for the Eyes
6 artworks from 6 artists across 5 galleries
The tour is ordered to begin from the Michigan Avenue entrance. If you are starting in the Modern Wing, simply do your tour in reverse order.
Explore some of the ways rhythm, song, and sound find their way into visual art on this tour of the collection.
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Female Caryatid Drum (Pinge)
Senufo
Gallery 137, first level, Arts of Africa Galleries
This drum, representing a high-ranking woman balancing a load on her head, celebrates women’s prominence in Senufo society, where they act as family founders and spiritual mediators and guardians. The drum's embellished designs allude to the knowledge and power of diviners. This particular object may have been played by a woman during funerals for members of the influential all-female associations known as Sandogo and Tyekpa."Music is used throughout the world as a means of both communal and individual inspiration and expression. Do you have any personal rituals that include music?"
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Four-Armed Sarasvati, Goddess of Learning, Seated in Lotus Position (Padmasana)
Gallery 141, first level, Arts of Asia Galleries
Worshipped in Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism, Sarasvati derives her name from an ancient river in northwest India. Just as rivers sustain life, Sarasvati represents the ancient source of knowledge through the image of flowing waters. Here, she sits amid water, holding a palm leaf manuscript symbolizing knowledge in one hand and in the other a stringed instrument called a vina, symbolizing the harmonies and creative energies of the universe."The stories expressed in hymns and songs have the power to transmit knowledge. What kind of music nurtures your mind and heart? Does it move you like a powerful river or carry you like a gentle stream?"
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Manxman Piano
Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott
Gallery 246, second level, Impressionism Galleries
Part of the English Arts and Crafts movement, architect and designer Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott created this pianoforte, an innovative solution to the awkward form of the upright piano. Scott's object is both cleverly functional and aesthetically pleasing. The opened lid and doors of the cabinet act as acoustical sounding boards. Inside is the musical instrument along with a profusion of handcrafted metalwork, including candleholders."Look for all the decorative details in light and dark wood, ivory, and mother-of-pearl and how the trim and striped pattern of the base echo the black-and-white piano keys. Do you think you need a beautiful instrument to make beautiful music?"
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Interior. The Music Room, Strandgade 30
Vilhelm Hammershøi
Gallery 246, second level, Impressionism Galleries
This painting is part of a series by Vilhelm Hammershøi capturing his sparsely decorated apartment at Strandgade 30 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Hammershøi often moved furniture and objects around his home like studio props: here, he placed a chair, piano, cello, and violin in a corner of the drawing room. Despite the inclusion of musical instruments, the scene evokes only eerie silence, with no sense of a human presence to play them.
"A scene like this could be melancholy, but you also might appreciate the stillness—for in a moment, musicians might spill into the room and fill it with sound. Which do you prefer: music or silence?"
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Jazz Bowl
Viktor Schreckengost
Gallery 161, first level, Arts of the Americas Galleries
This bowl was commissioned by Eleanor Roosevelt in celebration of her husband Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s re-election as governor of New York, and it has since become an icon of the Jazz Age and an the Art Deco period. Cowan Pottery liked Viktor Schreckengost's design and put the bowl into production. Using Schreckengost’s template, artisans scratched the design into the bowl's surface. Schreckengost then inspected and signed each bowl."The high-contrast colors—Egyptian blue and opaque black—were chosen to reflect New York City’s architecture, nightlife, and music. If you were to commission a bowl celebrating a type of music, what would it be?"
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The Old Guitarist
Pablo Picasso
Gallery 391, third level, Modern Galleries
This famous work is from Picasso’s Blue Period (1901–04), a time the artist restricted himself to a cold, monochromatic blue palette and flattened forms to convey the themes of misery and alienation. The elongated figure also reflects his interest in the great 16th-century Spanish artist El Greco. The 22-year-old Picasso had sympathy for the downtrodden; at the time, knew what it meant to be penniless."A blue man sits in a blue room playing the blues. Even his brown guitar has been glazed over with a thin layer of blue. What blue sounds might he be strumming on his blue guitar?"