Scholarly record

VISUAL SPACE IN POLISH RENAISSANCE MUSIC

K. Szymanska-Stulka

Abstract

Visual space and music seem to be the components of the real space, which are separated, and don’t come together but interaction of the rules of vision and sound can bring interesting research effects. I am convinced that the basis of visual arts can be adopted on the ground of music and deepen our knowledge about music of that time. In fact, visual and architectural space is around the composer and the listener. Moreover, it is experienced during musical performance and has a great impact on it. Areas of vision and hearing are also combined with space of human imagination, which is created upon the personal knowledge and individual expectations. These criteria will form the basis of the concept of Renaissance arts. In my paper, I would like to discuss the Renaissance idea of space in music. I take the theoretical background from the concept of perspective in visual arts developed by Leonardo da Vinci such as air perspective, illusion, light and shade contouring, special technics and effects like sfumato and ombreggiatura. I report selected examples of music according to these rules. I focus on the motet for the 4-mixed-voices choir a cappella as the most representative musical form of Renaissance music. I choose Polish music, which was rich and excellent in this time in our country. We even call this period the Golden Age of Polish Music. The leading musical forms and genres characterized the output of Polish composers that gathered around the court in Wawel castle and Renaissance Cracow – the capital of Poland at that time. Polish Renaissance Music was blooming in Poland in 15th and 16th century. The rules of the Italian Renaissance art which were adopted in the Polish area by Italian artists and scholars on the court of Bona Sforza - the queen of Poland, were formed our music then. Wac?aw z Szamotu? and other Polish Renaissance composers respected the rules of Renaissance polyphony and perfect sounding as the common style. They corresponded with the rules of visual and architectonical space. All of them were according to the idea of harmony, symmetry and perfect order. These rules were accepted broadly, not only in visual arts and music but also in poetry and literature. Moreover, this feeling pervades even daily and social life. How the world of Renaissance music respected the idea of infinite ideality expressed in visual arts is the main topic of this presentation.

Publication Impact Profile

No metrics available.

PLUMX see details

DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgemsocialF2018/2.3/S24.028

Publication details

Back to publication list