Music and painting are all forms of art, both embodying thoughts and spirits, which are the essence of art. That is why we usually see intriguing connections, strong emotional ties, or shared perceptions between different art forms.
Since the 2019/20 season, Mr. ZHU Wei, as guest visual artist of the NCPA Orchestra and Chorus, has been exploring the fantastic common ground between music and fine arts and trying to build a bridge between the two art forms. As you can see in our season brochure, such efforts have enabled Mr. Zhu to produce quite a number of excellent pieces. He works on all possible topics: the passionate images of musicians on the stage, the strong feelings that a piece of music may trigger in one’s heart, the joy, excitement, and enthusiasm that fill the space of this grand theater, and more. He presents all these with masterful lines and colors and we have incorporated these music-inspired works into our season brochure, program, souvenirs, promotional videos, and new albums. There may also be salons where you can meet Mr. Zhu face to face to see how a painter understands music and theme exhibitions for you to carefully examine more of his music-themed paintings and get a glimpse at how he has been trying to fuse music and fine arts.
The year 2020 marks the 250th anniversary of Ludwig Van Beethoven and this maestro has naturally become a major theme of Mr. Zhu’s works in the year. As his music presents to us, Beethoven is by no means a composer who stood alone in history, seperated from those before and after him. He is a master of all that his predecessors had achieved, and a trailblazer for all who followed his firm steps, leaving immeasurable influence for the present and future. In memory of Beethoven, Mr. Zhu created a piece in which Beethoven is put together, across time, with a number of maestros that he could never have met in reality in a place that may as well be seen as a spiritual paradise for humankind. Everyone here is among the greatest artists in human history: Besides Beethoven, there are also composers like Giuseppe Verdi, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Gustav Mahler; and painters like Pablo Picasso, Gustave Courbet, Leonardo Da Vinci, Balthus, and Piero della Francesca, all situated in scenes depicting the fantastic city of Florence by Filippo Brunelleschi and the charming building of the National Centre for the Performing Arts by Paul Andreu. This reminds me of both the poem gatherings described by ancient Chinese calligrapher WANG Xizhi and the grand scene in Raphael’s The School of Athens. Actually, music, paintings, architecture, or poetry, all forms of art and all the master pieces that mankind has ever seen in history are creative representations of our minds and lifestyles, giving us come from and where we are heading.
Just like the images of Beethoven and those by his side, the dancers who seem to be making their movements with every bit of energy and creativity they can possibly muster, all the quiet listeners around the quartet, and all that is depicted in the hundreds of simple but meaningful sketches by Mr. Zhu, are snapshots of fleeting moments in our art life. Immersed in these captured moments, one may feel as if he heard music flowing out from the stage. Whenever the curtain is drawn back, there is no need to distinguish between the composers, performers and listeners.
Music knows no boundary. It brings the same emotions to everyone who hears it and builds in every heart understanding and inclusiveness. My words may have betrayed me when it comes to how much enlightenment arts may bring to us. But here is Mr. Zhu with his rare talent to capture all these moving moments with his painting brush, convincing us all of what arts hold out to this world. This is one of the reasons why we proposed this long-term “guest visual artist” program in the first place: Mr. ZHU Wei’s paintings turn touching moments on the stage into eternal memories that we can share. For this, we are truly indebted to him, but still, we hope we could say this: Let’s look forward to more excellent works from him in the future so that we can all continue this meaningful visual journey with him into the marvelous world of arts.
