Concertos of Bella Bartok by Daniel Seret
(with the kind authorization of the artist)
Daniel Seret is a painter from “Les Ardennes” in the South of Belgium. Daniel has been concerned for years by the relationship between music and images. He has produced numerous paintings directly inspired by musical pieces from Hugues Dufourt, John Coltrane, Charlie Mingus, Bella Bartok … and a composer – François Nicolas – has even analysed his work. In addition, Daniel Seret has tried an explanation of the links he has established with music in his paintings (Daniel Seret). Some videos show how music can guide his gestures when painting.
In general, one painting corresponds to one piece of music as in his painting of the first and second concertos for violin of Bella Bartok (Entretemps) but Daniel has also produced several paintings for a single piece of music as done for the “Premier mouvement d’une symphonie pour Grandes Orgues” of François Nicolas (Erkennung (1° partie) pour grand orgue)
What is the opinion of composers when they see the visual transposition of their music? François Nicolas is not fully convinced by the work of Daniel Seret. “What have the paintings of Daniel Seret heard from my music ?” did he ask. “I do not recognize my composition, not because it has been modified, or transformed but because it is simply not there.” did he continue. According to him, the paintings are a translation of the feelings of the painter not a representation of the music.
Like in reverse translation, it would be interesting to go from an image to music and then the other way round.Would we find back the original work, or at least would we find some similaries with it ? This experiement was tried by Daniel Seret. He gave a visual interpretation of a music composed by Hugues Dufourt (French composer born in 1944), music itself inspired by a well-known photo “Les Ramoneurs” taken in 1851 by Charles Nègre and which can be seen in the museum “Carnavalet” in Paris. Daniel, of course, had never seen the photo.
Charles Négre. « Les Ramoneurs » before May 1852, Carnavalet museum, Paris
Here are an extract of “Hommage à Charles Nègre” from Hugues Dufourt and the painting of Daniel Seret.
Extract from «Hommage à Charles Nègre» of Hugues Dufourt
Daniel Seret. Painting inspired by «Hommage à Charles Nègre»
The painting is very different from the photo but some characterisitces of the original photo remain in the painting of Daniel: simplicity, feeling of moving forward, impression of painfullness given by the thickness of some lines but also of lightness suggested by the foot-like motif at the bottom of the picture, simple horizon, here represented as a vertical line (an horizontal sequence of roofs in the photo). On the other hand, where does the red bottom – situated below on the right- come from, why this witch’s broom, why a painting in black and white when the original photo uses different shades of brown ?