Exhibition space: Colour Music

Around the turn of the twentieth century, visual artists were looking to their musical counterparts for inspiration.

Constrained by the necessity of literal depiction the artists were envious of the freedom music gave its composers. They sought to paint the way musicians composed – tied not to narrative or figurative form but free to explore the sounds, the emotions and indeed the human experience of the notes played.

ANU Reporter's GEORGIA NIELSEN explores the birth of abstraction and uncovers the long-running relationship between music and colours at the recent Colour Music exhibition.

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