The song I have chosen to represent using a visual composition is called “Fix You” by the band Coldplay. This song is somber both in music and lyrics, but has an uplifting refrain and end. The song consists of many soft sounds and sequences of notes that sound as though they are being progressively built up, and then drop down again.

This song reminds me that times in life can be hard, but home, family, and friends are always there to lift you up and guide you. This is obvious in the lyric “lights will guide you home”, but the music itself also gives me the feeling of being lifted up, and that everything will be okay.

Research

When studying abstract art techniques, I found myself particularly drawn to Wassily Kandinsky and his work. “Several Circles”, “Decisive Pink”, and “Graceful Ascent” are three of his works I found particularly inspiring. The feeling of motion created by shape in “Several Circles”, the use of color to draw a viewer’s attention in “Decisive Pink”, and the softness and combination of color and shape in “Graceful Ascent” are all fascinating to me. It also is very interesting to observe how Kandinsky’s experimentation and concepts of shape and color progressed, just in these three paintings. Because of my interest in these works, I decided to experiment with abstract art through shape and color for this assignment.

The softness of the music and the building upward of the notes in the song I have chosen especially made me think of Kandinsky’s “Graceful Ascent” (which is featured as the cover photo), and so I look to his work for inspiration for this assignment.

I draw a great deal of my reasoning about placement of shape and color from Rudolf Arnheim’s Art and Visual Perception, Chapter 1: Balance, and Kandinsky’s Point and Line to Plane, as will be mentioned in the discussion of my outcome below. I also found information about Kandinsky’s views on color here.

Preliminary Outcome