Editor: the author is a student from School of Economics and Management. She edited following pictures with inspirations from Debussy, a famous French composer.
Named after the French composer Claude Debussy’s piano solos, the enlightenment of pictures combined photographs, paintings and inspirations come from music.
As a prominent figure in Impressionist Movement in 19th Century, Debussy established a new concept of music. Compared with previous European works that emphasize harmonic chords and clear, balanced texture, his music is full of ambiguous tonality, exotic scales, untraditional chromaticism, which creates a distinct timbre, evoking certain atmospheres.
Undoubtedly, like other artists in Paris, Debussy was deeply influenced by the oriental paintings prevalent at that time, like ukiyo-e. Well-defined line, areas of color along with flatten perspective are typical of these paintings. It is ornamental and subject aesthetic attitude, rather than the object itself, that the artists devote themselves to make the people appreciate.
In these pictures, common sceneries such as flowers, skirts, lakes, all lost their original shape, but were cut into diverse silhouettes. Dreamlike colors and light seems to be melt dye, blurry but vivid, remind you of the joy you remember, the sorrow you almost forget, the first cuckoo in spring, the sounds and fragrances swirling through the evening air…they make up detached fragmented moods, scenes or miracles of nature.
These are IMAGES. These are symbols and musical motives living in your own imagination, memories and dreams. A sensitive heart touches this universe in a song, as the hill touches the far-away sea with its waterfall. Just like Debussy got inspiration from poems when composing, I got it from Debussy’s music when photographing. Music is image in flow, image is music in silence ---a phantasy in time’s dream.
CLOUDS
Mountains in silhouette of wild goose
FIREWORKS
Flowers in silhouette of the beauties in Kitagawa Utamaro’s ukiyo-e
THE SEA
Seawater in silhouette of the wave in Katsushika Hokusai’s ukiyo-e
This ukio-e was once the cover of Debussy’s three symphonic sketches for orchestra LA MER in 1905.
DREAM
Chrysanthemum in silhouette of swallow
GARDENS IN THE RAIN
Lotus in silhouette of stork
MOONLIGHT
Boat on lake in silhouette of the Old library at WHU
A French poem Clair de Lune written by Paul Verlaine in 1869 became the inspiration for the most famous movement of Debussy's Suite Bergamasque of the same name.
Moonlight
Your soul is a chosen landscape
Where charming masqueraders and bergamaskers go
Playing the lute and dancing and almost
Sad beneath their fanciful disguises.
All sing in a minor key
Of victorious love and the opportune life,
They do not seem to believe in their happiness
And their song mingles with the moonlight,
With the still moonlight, sad and beautiful,
That sets the birds dreaming in the trees
And the fountains sobbing in ecstasy,
The tall slender fountains among marble statues.
REFLECTION ON THE WATER
The lake mirrored the hillside in silhouette of deer
SPRING
Plum blossom in silhouette of sparrow
THE FRAGRANCE OF THE NIGHT
A dancer’s swinging skirt in silhouette of cat
( Edited by Mark & Hu Sijia)
