'SOUNDSCAPES' at the National Gallery

Paul Cezanne - Les Grande Baigneuse

One of the most essential and philosophical things that art does, however cautiously or however strongly, is an inquiry into the concepts of time and space as what it is and what else it could be. Different mediums of Art do this in different ways.
But what happens when two forms get together, not just for the sake of getting together, but as a response to each other and a form of communication with each other?
The results can be as perplexing and mysterious as it was at the 'Soundscapes' exhibition at the National Gallery.

As soon as you enter the exhibition arena, you are shown an introductory film in which the commissioned musicians talk about how they were inspired by the particular pieces they have chosen (It might have been better if the film was shown after the audience went through the soundproofed labyrinth and taken in the works without a prelude into the ideas of what/why they were what they were). After this you are led into the black area, dimly lit, with dark passages leading into separate soundproofed rooms in which the paintings are placed and the music fills your ears.
There are five of them in total, and each creates a different atmosphere and evokes a different feeling.

The first thing that I as a viewer was confronted with was a very challenging decision - How long is too long or too less to have a wholesome experience with each piece?
Because with musical pieces, the beginning and end is given to us. It is pre-decided, and you wait till the last strain is heard and you know it is over. However, with paintings or visual art forms, time is held in a different way. We decide when we 'start' seeing it, and when we 'stop' seeing. The audience decides and marks the beginning and the end. And when you put both the visual and the aural together, not as disjointed or merely decorative elements but as cohesive pieces that are supposed to have a conversation going on, and when the music is on loop, the sense of 'time' gets really warped and beautifully confusing as there eventually builds a subtle cohesion between them. You do not know how long to stay and you do not know every word of the conversation they are having, and after a while it does not matter. You want to linger, listen a bit, see a bit, and wander off into another room for a bit, and then come back for a little more.

When it is a single instrument/strain, the illusion of an endless continuity is stronger, as it was in Susan Phillips response to the painting 'The Ambassadors' by Hans Holbein the Younger. Taking the visual clues of the broken string of the lute and the discord between the State and the Religious authorities from the painting, the sound installation produced using a violin with a broken string had a very genuine appeal and a weird energy of discomfort around it. It seemed to me as one of the most honest responses created and expressed.

The second thing that strikes you as you wander around the show is the choice of natural, the artificial ( by that I mean those created by instruments), and the artificial-ised natural sounds used. How exactly has the musician chosen it ? You wonder. Is it largely about the medium the musician works in, or about how far he/she has stretched it to make room for their responses?
 In the room with wildlife sound recording artist Chris Watson's response to the painting of Lake Keitele by Akseli Gallen-Kallela, you hear the recorded the sounds of birds, of water and distant ambiguous noises recorded from a similar natural landscape. When you look at and immerse yourself in the painting which does not have a foreground, it feels like you are situated not on the banks of the lake but on a boat somewhere in the middle, the sounds begin to feel a bit too nearby, causing a slight panic to your already twisted whereabouts.
In the last room, which is also a painting of a lake (A pointillist work titled 'Coastal Scene' by Theo Van Rysselberghe), the reactions it has sparked in the musician Jamie xx's work is completely different. He being a DJ, has responded in his medium. A very catchy yet delicate tune with soft beats greets you, and 'he has created an environment in which directional speakers encourage you to listen and look room different vantage points. When you stand furthest away from the painting, you will hear the music as its intended to sound, just as the painting's brushwork appears to give it a unified form.As you move closer, the music diffuses and breaks up in the same way that Van Rysselberghe's dots dissipate and dissolve.'

As you enter the room in which Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller have responded to the painting 'Saint Jerome in his Study' by Antonello da Messina, you not only have an aural treat but also a visual treat - a 3-d model created by the musicians to bring to light even the tiniest of details in the painting. The musicians have responded not just musically but also visually, adding another layer to the experience. The music, which depicts the environment of the painting, has the sound of rain, of doors/windows opening/creaking, and footsteps walking across, after which the lights come on and you witness the whole scene like an immersive theater. Because the scale of the architectural model is maintained as small rather than an over ambitious life size model, the 'Conversations with Antonello', as they have called the work, remain and cozy and consistent and are restrained from being too loud and out of reach.

Coming to one of my personal favorites. Responding to Paul Cezanne's 'Les Grande Baigneuses', Gabriel Yared, an Oscar winning film composer, has created a mellifluous and slightly eerie sounding track with different instruments and a soprano voice which seems as if it is floating out of the painting and its twilight atmosphere. Though the narrative quality is obvious because of the unhindered flow of the music as well as the graceful arrangement of elements in the painting, the words of its possible conversations are open to a million interpretations. Just as almost all the females have their eyes away from the audience in the visual, the music lingers and slightly touches on the door to interpretations and stories, like fingers skimming along the edge of water.

Perhaps the one that fit in so well that perfection became too adamant was Nico Muhly's 'Long Phrases for the Wilton Diptych' for the painting 'The Wilton Diptych'.
Personally for me, the music gelled with the visual way too easily and simplistically (which is not always a bad thing though) that I had nothing left to maneuver around or try and decipher.

Overall, the exhibition leaves you wanting for more, not more of what is not there and what could have been added along, but more of what already is there. You find yourself wandering in and out of the different rooms many times, trying to get as much as you can of what the artist could have felt and what you start feeling as well within a couple of minutes.

As I left into a rainy evening with a very filled up soul, I couldn't help wondering and thinking about our own Ragamala paintings - miniature paintings all inspired by Indian Classical music and which were personifications of the different Ragas and Raginis.
Indian art has been splendidly inter-disciplinary since ages ago, and if there were more serious artists and more serious funds and audience devoted specifically for the arts, India can create wonders in the present based on its strong past.