Note on Palette Sounds
Johannes Cornelisz van Swieten, A Lute-playing Painter (1650s) Oil on panel. Stedelijk Museum, Leiden.
My recent post on artists using stringed instruments as metaphoric palettes was restricted to guitars so I did not use this image. Perhaps I should have because while musicians may think lutes and guitars are very different, in artworks they are much the same. Johannes Cornelisz van Swieten, a 17th-century Dutch artist, depicted a painter, perhaps himself, playing the lute in front of his easel while carefully juxtaposing the shape of its soundbox to the palette on the table (detail below). Both are made from wood of similar color with a large hole. They each have a long, thin form extending to the right as well: the lute's neck and the palette's brushes. His thumb just touches the sound-hole to remind viewers like you of the palette’s thumb-hole and, thus, its poetry.
The artist's hand resting on the wood panel of the lute's body has further resonance too. The scene is painted on a wood panel.
Posted 12 Feb 2014: Brushes / PaletteMusic as ArtVisual MetamorphosisTheory
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