TM8150 Fugue #1 – Song for a Celadon Sea 36×36 oil on panel

According to Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, a fugue is “…a polyphonic musical composition in which one or two (or more) themes are repeated …by interweaving and merging with the successively entering voices and contrapuntally developed in a continuous interweaving of the parts…” Bach’s amazing fugues range from eloquent and deceptively simple to complex and richly textured.

Listening to these fugues, I’ve always felt they were synonymous with the feel and movement of water. By combining the theme and variations of the fugue (and the staffs upon which one might be written) with the visual patterns of a wave, I hope to pay homage to both Bach and Nature in a group of paintings which I will call Fugues – all part of the Water Music Series. Today I finished the first, a celadon green wave rising, its ripples interweaving with the subtly colored staff lines traversing the lower half of the painting. Enjoy!