CSP 6: Making It New

Schoenberg’s music relates to a lot of other artistic works around the same time period. His music could be compared to Dada art, where the artist would try and break the common norms of art. The music of his did exactly this, it went against what was commonly known as music. It pushed the idea of music just like expressionists pushed the idea of art. It seems a little disconnected from the article just because his music differed from the normal music of the time. He wasn’t doing it just to mess with people though, he was pushing boundaries and defining his own style of music. I think it makes a lot of sense to call Schoenberg an expressionist composer in many ways. Expressionists challenged the time periods art and pushed what was commonly excepted, which is what Schoenberg did. Both were also heavily criticized for their knowledge of their art because of how different it was. I feel like expressionist would be a perfect way to label him as a composer. I think what was so appealing about music without a key center to Schoenberg is that he had no walls holding him back. He had no box that he had to think in, he could do anything he wanted with his music and not have society based boundaries like normal composers had.

After reading a lot of Gertrude’s poems, I found a connection between all of them that they are very nonsensical. Each poem of his doesn’t necessarily rhyme or have reason to it. The poem I chose was A Red Stamp and it follows these same guidelines. There is no rhyming and the scheme of sentences seem to be unrelated. The poem and the title also have absolutely nothing in common and this seems to be on purpose. The sentences don’t make since together and have no underlying meaning or message. This seems a lot like a Dada style poem. It is very interesting to me how Gertrude made so many poems like this and they became well known. I know what he was going for is for them to have no interpretation but I’m used to poems that rhyme and have a story or message to tell. This is the first poem of its type that I’ve ever read before and I’m conflicted on whether I like it or not. I can see why it got so well known, for being so controversial.

Claude Monet’s piece, Lavacourt, Sunshine and Snow, is very unique in the technique it is painted. Many of the other works are extremely detailed while this one has barely any detail. This is one of the few paintings that looks very well with low detail, the entire painting is purposefully in brushstrokes and it works together. The color choices are very similar to one another and are all smudged reds, blues, whites, and blacks. The pictures composition isn’t directly focused on any one thing and is more like Claude Monet was trying to replicate a nature photograph. I thought it was surprising that he avoided making the beautiful detail that was very popular at the time, it was risky. The lack of color was another surprise that ended up working out in Claude’s favor to make the painting very unique against the normal art of that time. The brushstroke colors flow together very well and since the colors are all in the same shade, the whole painting comes together beautifully. The way he paints this brings a soft and peaceful look which is exactly what the snowy backdrop gives off. What makes this picture so successful is the brilliant way Claude matched the painting style with what was being painted.

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