Words Edel Cassidy
Music and visual art have long been closely intertwined, each taking inspiration from the other, and throughout the history of art there are innumerable depictions of musical instruments and music-making. Churches of all denominations have long been major patrons and collectors of art, and the pipe organ holds pride of place as the primary musical instrument of the major Christian churches for playing sacred music and for leading congregational singing.
Saint Cecilia
c.1626, Simon Vouet
Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin
Oil on canvas
The patron saint of music and musicians, Cecilia has been portrayed with a variety of instruments. However, artists have primarily chosen to depict her playing the organ.
The dramatic contrasts of light and shade in Simon Vouet’s (1590–1649) early work indicate that he was influenced by Caravaggio. However, works completed after 1620 display a brighter palette and more decorative style. Rich colours and fine detail are used here to illustrate the texture and surface of the subject, her clothing and the organ pipes, giving them an almost tactile quality. A soft light illuminates the painting, accentuating the fine detail and infusing the scene with a heavenly atmosphere.
Vouet regularly used his wife, the painter Virginia da Vezzo, as the model for his religious commissions, so she may have been the model for the figure of the saint in this work.
Bach Plays the Organ in the Presence of Frederick the Great
Hermann Kaulbach, 1875
Private collection
Oil on canvas
Best known for his portraits of children, German painter Hermann Kaulbach (1846–1909) also painted historic figures, including some of the great composers. Here he depicts Johann Sebastian Bach playing the organ in the presence of Frederick the Great of Prussia and the Royal Family at Potsdam in 1747.
Bach had been invited to Frederick’s summer palace Sanssouci in Potsdam where his son, Carl Philipp Emmanuel, was employed as harpsichordist and court composer. The king invited Bach to try his new fortepianos built by Bach’s organ-builder colleague and friend Gottfried Silbermann. The king owned seven of these instruments.
On the following day, Bach, who during his lifetime was better known as an organist than a composer, was invited to play on all the city’s organs. A royal procession made its way around Potsdam, and Johann Sebastian Bach gave an organ concert at the Heilig-Geist-Kirche (Holy Ghost Church) to an enthusiastic audience.
The Ghent Altarpiece: Angels Playing Music
1426–27, Jan van Eyck
Saint Bavo’s Cathedral, Ghent
Oil on wood
Brothers Hubert (c.1385/90–1426) and Jan Van Eyck (before 1390–1441) were commissioned to paint the Ghent Altarpiece, which comprises of twenty painted panels linked in a large hinged framework. Hubert died in the early stages of the artwork’s creation, and it is believed that he was responsible for the planning and arrangement of the work. It is also understood that he made the underdrawing and had started work on the painting. But Jan completed it and was responsible for most of the painting.
This panel is typical of Jan van Eyck’s work, which was remarkable for its realism and mastery of fine detail. The wood pattern on the organ case indicates that it is made of oak, and the handle means that the organ is portable. For this particular style of organ, the player generally played the keys with the right hand and pumped the bellows with the left. Here the organ is being played with both hands because the bellows are operated by one of the angels. On the far left, strands of that angel’s hair and a red garment are barely visible.
The Organ Rehearsal
1885, Henry Lerolle
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Oil on canvas
Set in the church of Saint-François-Xavier in Paris, this painting features Henry Lerolle’s (1848–1929) own friends and family, and the darker tones of the figures and the choir loft indicate a cosy intimacy in stark contrast to the height and brightness of the nave. Included are the artist’s wife Madeleine, seated with sheet music on her lap, her two sisters (one seated and one singing); the artist’s brother-in-law, composer Ernest Chausson, plays the organ, the woman standing behind the organist is Lerolle’s mother, and the figure to the left, facing the viewer, is a self-portrait of the artist.
Exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1885, it was shown in New York the following year at the first major Impressionist exhibition held in America. One critic recalled, ‘spectators often spoke low before it as if waiting for the organ to play and the voice of the singer to be heard.’
Interior of the Church of St Bavo in Haarlem
1636, Pieter Jansz Saenredam
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Oil on panel
Pieter Saenredam (1597–1665) specialised in architectural painting and was especially known for his distinctive paintings of church interiors. Considered the greatest architectural painter of the Dutch Golden Age, he was the first artist to produce architecturally accurate depictions of buildings, rather than the more stylised, exaggerated approach championed by Mannerism.
Here he chose a vantage point from behind an arch, which creates a framing element, and our gaze is automatically drawn upwards to the old organ, which has a painted scene of the Resurrection of Christ on its shutter.
The organ depicted here is one of the world’s most historically important organs. Built by Christian Müller between 1735 and 1738, it was the largest organ in the world by the time of its completion. Many famous musicians have played this organ, including Mendelssohn, Handel and, in 1766, the ten-year-old Mozart.
In the far aisle of the church, to the lower right, there is a second, smaller, organ.
The Young Mozart Playing the Organ
1864, Heinrich Lossow
Schlossmuseum Linz
Oil on canvas
The German painter and engraver Heinrich Lossow grew up in an artistic family in Munich. A skilled genre artist, he was the son of the sculptor Arnold Hermann Lossow, who taught him the basics before Heinrich went on to study under Karl Theodor von Piloty at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts.
The painting depicts the six-year-old Mozart playing the organ at the Franciscan church in Ybbs, Lower Austria in September 1762. The story goes that Mozart was travelling from Linz to Vienna with his family when a priest who was in their company stopped at Ybbs to say Mass. According to Mozart’s father, when his son played the organ there, members of the religious community left what they were attending to and listened to him in amazement.
The Love Song
1868–77, Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Oil on canvas
This painting was inspired by the melancholic refrain of an old Breton ballad:
‘Hélas! je sais un chant d’amour
Triste ou gai, tour à tour’
(‘Alas, I know a love song,
Sad or happy, each in turn’).
Sir Edward Burne-Jones (1833–1898), who was associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, primarily considered himself a painter, although he mainly earned his living as a stained glass designer.
Music was a key theme in this artist’s work and here the viewer is drawn to the ‘positive’ organ, a small Renaissance
instrument, which creates the accompaniment to the love song.
Cupid works the bellows of the organ, played by a young woman who is serenading a reclining armoured knight. The placement of the figures clinging to the foreground in this work bears a strong resemblance to the artist’s stained glass designs.
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