Art and Music

Music Art

This is a random post that is all about the connection between the art in music, or more specifically how artwork and music are combined to display a feeling or emotion and the importance of this.  I am referring to cover art for Cd's and records and their promotional art. I think cover art is very important and can become a signature style used by the band and can be used as their trademark to give them something specific to them that can be just as special as the music and make them stand out or become recognizable. 
Cover art can sometimes be striking and attract the same if not more attention that the music held within, for example Cannibal Corpses infamous album covers such

as their 1991 release 'Butchered at Birth' and 2012's 'Torture'.

 

This style of artwork has not only become trademark for a CC album but it for the entire genre, with it becoming a iconic genre staple, you wont find many bands releasing albums without using this style of artwork to accompany it. Usually the idea behind this images are nothing more than to create shock, horror effect and create controversy to help shift the album and appeal to fans, and is not normally an visual representation of the music. The artwork of Cannibal Corpse (impressive as it may be) does not necessarily communicate the musical feels of their albums (that is my personal opinion anyway).  Many bands Have taken this theme and used even more extreme illustrations for their music, however I feel that this can be just bands competing to be more 'extreme' and 'brutal' than the next band, just overly exaggerate their cover art for the sake of it and not for artistic reasons. Examples of this are probably bands like Cesspool of vermin with their album cover on 'Swirling carnivorous mass'. look it up.
A better example of similar album artwork that has more accurate feel to it, or put another way connects with the music in a better way would be 'Legacy of the Ancients' by Pathology released in 2010 or 'The Anomalies of Artificial Origin' by Abnormal Putridity from 2012.  
I was interested in the band Pathology from this image below, which is why I think good album artwork is important for bands to use to sell their albums and attract fans.
 I Think the cover for Abnormal Putridity's latest release is an exceptional piece of Album artwork that captures the musical and lyrical themes perfectly and superbly compliments the brutality and energy of the music with brutality and energy of its own. It really makes the album an exceptional package, with the more original use of colour rather than traditional red and black which helps the album stand out and the piece really has depth and endless potential in triggering emotive and imaginative responses in the viewer unlike Cannibal Corpse's artwork, which really is more limited in the emotions it conjurers.  I think that both of these pieces of art are exceptional in their own right but combined with their respective music really create something special. Both of these images are illustrations of the albums and the albums are sound tracks to the artwork . Both are highly recommended. 

You can see from the pictures that the artwork is becoming more refined and technical with more modern bands however it still displays similar themes. Both these images are by Par Olofsson where as the CC artwork is done by Vince Locke.
 I think the newer pieces are very cleverly constructed  as they omit most of the gore but can still create a brutal, powerful and satisfying piece of art (not to mention looking really cool!) by focusing on the composition,  of the characters and colour and textures of the picture.I really cannot say enough good stuff about these pictures and could write about them forever but I think I've covered my main points.

Moving on I would like to give a few more examples of what I think are great pieces of art that go with great pieces of art (music)

Parkway drive

 

The artwork on Parkway Drive's 2007 albums horizons may perhaps look to some uninteresting ,basic or random however if you know anything about this band or this music then you should understand why I think that this artwork is just a perfect companion to their music.  Personally I think this art is more epic than words and could spend an age contemplating its awesomeness.

It is not so much the technical ability of the images that I find inspiring but the whole emotions that I associate with it and the I feel that it is an absolutely superb representation of the emotions and concepts contained within the music. From the image itself to the colours and added embellishment, this art really hammers home the feelings from the songs and ideas and values of the band as well as more generic genre specific themes. 

The main image itself is of a pretty nondescript snow drift or sand dune, however with some alteration to the colours it is transformed with this picture now speaks volumes to me as I can instantly relate it to the band, the music and the genre and all the emotions and perspectives that go along with it. This image has been chosen (or created) as it has some disturbance in the surface indicating someone  has walked along it, in pursuit of the horizons. I feel that this image gives creates more questions than answers and entices you to explore the album from which you can draw your conclusions. If I had to describe the exact emotions and feel that these images portray I would probably say it is of lonesomeness and longing, hope and struggle. The whole feeling of this album is that of a journey, which begins with the front cover and ends with the last track, however only then do you realize that the journey is not over (it has just begun) hence the art on the reverse side looking over the horizon seen on the front cover of the Cd, you are then constantly related to your own journey called life via the songs and illustrations,  its an intense and epic experience, with what once looked like a plain lazy front cover now having great depth and meaning.

 The embellishments and colours are not strong but are added in with careful thought of their composition and scale. The style of the whole artwork is very 'beachy' which represents the overall genre very well but also feels very personal for the band .

 The epicness continues along with their subsequent albums 'Deep blue' and 'Atlas.

Again the art from this album tell a story and tracks along with the music, telling a story and being the visual representation of the feeling of the songs. 

The art from Atlas however does appear to have any chronological purpose however it is very awesome looking and provokes emotions.

BREAKDOWN OF SANITY

This is another example of what I think to be an exceptional piece of Album artwork which just suits the album perfectly. This picture from the cover of BREAKDOWN OF SANITY's new albums is clearly a very artistic piece and has been created very skillfully and has lots of depth with a very clean finish,the viewpoint and angle gives a very definite perspective, it looks very driven and precise. Minimal colour has been used in this image but a large range in tone instead gives the image incredible depth and an almost 'clinical' feel. 

This image in my opinion is very striking and really portrays a feeling of freshness (in both senses) and cold. It even reminds me of breathing cold air into my lungs on a crisp morning and the immensely fresh and crisp feeling that washes through the body, which is basically what you feel when this music hits your ears.

 I think this is an A* music and art match, because the emotions caused by the harsh and beautiful visuals match the beautiful melodies intertwined with the Gnarly rhythm.

I think the overall presentation of the cover would persuade anyone to listen to this album, with complete expectations of what they will find, I think the cover image describes the sound perfectly. Djent.(Musical) Art and (visual) Art at its best. 

Completely unlike their previous album 'Mirrors' which features  dull artwork with I think offers not suggestion of the great work within and is very off putting, this piece is so incredibility cliche and mind numbingly dull its annoying. It does not allude in anyway to the epicness of sound that awaits within and I would say it is very off putting and deterred me from trying this band for a long time. Again this is why I think that carefully considered art is very essential in promoting and describing music, images speak a thousand words.

A SKYLIT DRIVE

My last example of brilliant and beautiful album art is of the new album of A SKYLIT DRIVE called 'rise', 

I think this is just a superb, superb piece of art . It is probably one of if not the best album cover I have ever seen even thought  this theme has been done and done again and is so generic, I feel this is why this artwork is so amazing is that it takes two very generic and over done cliche and knocks them out of the park and into another dimension. The delivery of the image is just insane, I can not think about anything else that would make this image any better, again its a piece of art that you can really stand back and take a moment to appreciate. 

 For example the image content is quite morbid but at the same time look incredibly beautiful, her expression and they way the artist has positioned her hair and the ripples in her clothes paints this into a tranquil picture. Art like this just redefines the standard and just blows me away, I believe this is an album that many people enjoy and relate to and I think people can find many different meanings in the artwork that accompanies it. This piece of art is just epic basically, really awesome and good looking, it shows both power and finesse and combines them to make something both equally beautiful and awe inspiring. 

This cover art is just what fans want and I would definitely buy the album on the art alone if i had not heard the music,this is why I think this is great art. 

 

Artists who use experimental mark making

 Cai Guo QIang

Cai Guo Qiang is a Chinese artist who uses experimental and unconventional materials to create his works. The pictures above show his pictures created from drawing in a mixture of powders including gunpowder onto paper or fabric and then igniting the powder to create burns and smudges onto the paper to create his marks and thus his drawing. I find some of his works to be quite good and they all do seem certainly fun to create, as they are 'experimental' drawings they have certain level of unpredictability to them especially when using active ingredients such as gunpowder which could improve the pictures in the eyes of some, not me though however on the whole i think his pictures are interesting especially as they often have traditional Chinese art and cultural influences and of course gunpowder is a commodity originally from china so I think overall it is an interesting concept.

Kyle Myers A.K.A Dmitri Potapoff

Kyle Myers is an american artist and designer who works under the alias of Dmitri Potapoff. He experiments in many different artistic fields including painting, music, photography, film making and design. Kyle works very well in experimental painting and mark making, his works are very educational and fun. 

Kyle is one of the biggest artists who uses experimental mark making and is also one of my favorites with his work has been viewed tens on millions of times. Kyle is highly talented and does not stick to traditional artistic practices but likes to modernize his work, whilst keeping a grounding with his work inline with traditional techniques.

Patrick Rochon

Patrick Rochon is an artist who uses light to create marks rather than anything physical. His work looks very advanced and technical and he uses light so that it looks like brush strokes. This gives his images a very interesting effect as they could potentially be paintings which is a cool concept. I think his work has a very emotional feeling and somewhat dark theme to them which is ironic because he is painting with light. It appears he thinks very carefully about his images and what they will look like before hand and sets himself some rough parameters but keep himself free to play around with the fine detail. Patrick works in a very traditional way in the aspects he uses his medium (light) as paint and always works in a traditional canvas and paint format. I think he has a good mix of modern and old ways.

Walking as a creative process

 Chris Burchell

 Chris works with mixed media and acrylic paints. He obviously gains his inspiration from walking and copies or is  inspired by the scenes he sees when out. From a random website about artists who try to protect the countryside with their work.

Hamish Fulton

Hamish Fulton appears to be a dude who like to walk a lot. His art is quite interesting for me because i like walking expeditions and going to wild places, so i am interested in where hes been and what he felt like. I suppose from an art perspective his works are interesting in regards to colour, composition,shape and form. I think they are quite striking or noticeable because of the symbols and colours he uses which look very similar to instruction and safety notices seen in places like ferries and planes (e.g "life boat here" etc), most likely connected to his copious travelling. He focuses on text as art and very specific about what the text is which is usually diegetic. I  personally would not want to come back and look at most of his pictures again as for me they hold limited viewing potential. Some of his work is also political, i dont think it has changed the world though.


Tony Moore


Tony Moore is an illustrator who uses the WALKING (dead) in his creative process. He is one of the artists responsible for the artwork in the walking dead series of comics. I think he can create some really nice menacing drawings. I think his images have great character and are really interesting and very open in to repeat viewing due to their detail and stylized creation. I find his work pretty interesting and versatile and much more fun to look at that the other 2 artists work.

3 Photographers of note.

Faye Goodwin

 this picture is pretty interesting to me because basically it looks cool, i think it does very well at being the visual representation of an emotion, it could be many different things like peace,loneliness or regret or anything. but for me it looks most like awe or isolation and absolution, it looks like it should be displayed with some awe-inspiring music. This image is very much similar to the ones used on the album 'Atlas' by Parkway Drive (which very well could have been inspired by Faye's,). I really relish the way pictures and music can be displayed perfectly together to create brilliant ambiance.

Irving Pen

 I like this image because of the way the light has been arranged masterfully to interact with the subject and form a very beautiful image. in my opinion this is a picture that is worthy of wall time but not to be taken to seriously, its just more about beautiful form than deep meaning or not meant to make the viewer think to hard.

George Tice

Without realizing it my chosen 3 artists out of 50 are all ones how predominantly or exclusively work in black and white or old style photographs. George Tice is no exception but to be honest all these pictures could have been taken by the same person because they all look basically the same and are done the same way, however in my opinion Irving and Faye are more skilled photographers than George because his pictures look much more plain and less technical than the other 2 photographers, somewhat more plain, but perhaps that is his appeal? taking more 'realistic' or put more accurate 'closer to life' photos than the other 2. however i do like this picture 'country road' however it definitely will become boring quicker than the other 2.