Analysis of Impressionism, Expressionism and Primitivism

Music and Art

Music is the art of combination of data making information that is conveyed and disseminated to the audience through words of mouth in a melodious style. Since time immemorial music has remained to be cultural substantiates and mostly used in the conveyance of information to the people while art is the act of making products from the thinking of a person and transferring that ideology into a visible object. Both works hand in hand as originates from the brain to informational objects. Non-western music has highly influenced the western music despite the originality and uniqueness of the western music its culture and melodies of deliverance.

Triangular Trade and Cultural Mixing

The emergence of triangular trade was one reason behind the today’s influence of western music by the rest of the world music, during then Africans were taken as slaves from the west coast of Africa to America where European settlers were in large numbers. Through this mixture every single party carried by itself the music culture and this would mix as time goes by, the mixture of these cultures brought up new cultures who are now descendants of slaves and has high impact in western music both American and Europe like the reggae music which includes the African marimba Kora and Banjo instruments.

Avant-garde Styles in Music

The avant-garde styles of impressionism, primitivism, and expressionism can’t be left out in a musical discussion. This style s has got huge and large impacts and influence on the music industry during their time of use to date. Impressionism was an art measure which developed further during the renaissance period influencing the photographic painting with the use of chromatic circles that had presentation purpose classified into the color of paint. This made the art of impressionism grew to the painting of pictures rather than the traditional way of drawings.

Primitivism and Expressionism

Primitivism is an art made by someone who has no formal training which has influenced the growth of street art, restoration of modern western culture and provided a platform for expression of discontent with the convention of western art and promotion of new art styles (Sherman,pg.92). This has helped in communicating the idea of modern European civilization in a simple direct way. The other character is expressionism which uses people as the subject of representation have total use of reality and not objectivity and this helped in expressing western typical problems in the 20th century.

Characteristics of Impressionism, Primitivism and Expressionism

Expressionism usually links emotional between the viewer and artwork. Impressionism music focuses on conveying the moods and emotions of the subject aroused rather than detailed tone picture, this is mostly represented by short, lyrical pieces. Among the composers of this style was Debussy who had a great profile of impressionism between (1890-1920). Expressionism was a feature of the high level of dissonance with extreme contrasts of dynamics and constant texture changes. This style is characterized by melodies and harmonies with leaps, a remarkable icon in this style was Arnold Schoenberg. Primitivism too employed use of melodic and harmonic counters in their styles, it involved the composition of cultural affairs by untrained personnel in a performance like the songs of seasonal work and duties. A central figure in this style is Bartok’s Mikrokosmos- Songs of Harvest the main difference between the three styles was the source and the style of composer, impressionisms having its source as moods and emotional while expressionism had nationalistic mainstream and involved people as the main subject of expression and primitiveness was expressing discontentment of modern society in comparison to traditional cultures. This style has got some characteristics to share, they all evolved in older movement sand usually retains aspects of old days culture with some changes credited to the styles by some artists but who conserve others. These styles are hence classified as avant-garde and usually violate academic rules of art with effectual impact on culture.

Work Cited

Sherman, Daniel J. French Primitivism and the Ends of Empire, 1945-1975. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011. Print.