Music from Painting
Esther Williams, Art and Music

An additional example, in reverse, of one artistic medium reflecting on another, is the suite of solo piano pieces titled Pictures at an Exhibition, by Russian composer Modest Musorgsky (1839-1881). These fifteen pieces were written in response to an exhibition of drawings and paintings by artist Viktor Hartmann (1834-1873), a close friend of Musorgsky. Hartmann, like Mozart, died when he was less than 40 years old, and a mutual friend of the artist and the composer organized an exhibition of Hartmann’s drawings and paintings the year after his death. This exhibit inspired Musorgsky to compose his musical depictions of ten of the paintings and drawings, with intermezzos, called “Promenades,” that appear as interludes several times and represent the composer wandering through the exhibition. Each movement captures in a musical language something Musorgsky saw as the essence of a particular artwork. The contrasts and juxtapositions of the fifteen movements, established and organized by the composer, result in an overall structure that has artistic shape and interest for the listener.

Just as Esther Williams’ painting can only hint at the sound of Mozart’s musical compositions, so also Musorgsky’s piano pieces can only hint at the visual effect of Hartmann’s drawings and paintings in the 1874 exhibition (many of which, unfortunately, have been lost or destroyed). And just as Esther Williams combined a vase of anemones, a portion of a musical score, and a corner of a piano into a painting that serves as a tribute to her favorite composer, so, too, did Musorgsky assemble his musical responses to ten specific artworks to create an aesthetically satisfying piano suite as a tribute to his recently deceased artist friend. In both cases, the artists were moved to respond to artwork from an art medium different from their own, but in the process to create an artistic expression in her or his own medium, a new artwork that could serve as an appropriate memorial to an admired artist of an alternative artistic form.

Further Reading

• Esther Baldwin Williams and Esther Williams Papers, 1892-1984, Archives of American Art/Smithsonian Institution, reels 917-918, 921, and 3975.
• Levitin, Daniel J., This Is Your Brain on Music; The Science of a Human Obsession, New York, Dutton, 2006.
• Gernot, Gruber, Mozart and Posterity, Boston, Northeastern University Press, 1994.
• Paintings, Drawings, Lithographs by Esther Williams, Worcester (Massachusetts) Art Museum, 1936.
• Williams, Nadia, Charles Abbot Baldwin and His Family, 1838-1927, privately published, Pigeon Cove, Massachusetts, 1984.

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