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Topics

Music

  • Summary
The Orchestra
Image credit: York Museums Trust

The Orchestra

John Albert Cooper (1894–1943)

York Museums Trust

Music was one of the traditional arts, along with architecture, sculpture, painting, poetry and dance. It also features strongly in the Bible, so has been depicted accompanying many religious subjects, where angels can often be found playing musical instruments and singing from scores.


As a respectable artistic activity, music has also been shown in private and secular settings from the sixteenth century onwards, in both of the contrasting Italian and Northern European traditions.

Read more
It is often shown accompanying courtship and, in paintings from seventeenth-century Holland, music (and dance) can be seen accompanying obvious scenes of seduction. From the time of late eighteenth-century Romantic movement, the power of music to move the emotions is often made explicit in paintings.

Artworks

  • Max Wall
    Max Wall Nicholas Monro (b.1936)
    Southampton City Art Gallery
  • Leicester and Amy Robsart at Cumnor Hall
    Leicester and Amy Robsart at Cumnor Hall Edward Matthew Ward (1816–1879)
    Southampton City Art Gallery
  • Shepherd and Dogs
    Shepherd and Dogs John Emms (1843–1912)
    Southampton City Art Gallery
  • Orpheus at the Door of the Underworld
    Orpheus at the Door of the Underworld Philip Jones (b.1971)
    Southampton City Art Gallery
  • Girl and Boy with Violin
    Girl and Boy with Violin George Elgar Hicks (1824–1914)
    Southampton City Art Gallery
  • Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958), O.M., Mus D
    Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958), O.M., Mus D Jacob Epstein (1880–1959)
    Southampton City Art Gallery
  • Mrs Hammersley
    Mrs Hammersley Duncan Grant (1885–1978)
    Southampton City Art Gallery
  • 555 more

Stories

  • Glyndebourne: a vibrant opera and theatre archive

    Philip Boot

  • Seven questions with Scott Myles

    Chris Sharratt

  • Handel Cromwell Evans: painting the continual exchange between human beings and the material world

    Neil Holland

  • Visual sound: mysteries of the human voice revealed by Megan Watts Hughes

    Christopher Parry

  • Musical sketches: capturing the ephemeral

    Anna Maria Barry

  • The sensuous entity: music and poetry in the art of Ceri Richards

    Bryony White

  • Tom Hammick's 'Underworld' at Glyndebourne

    Nerissa Taysom

  • Harriet Cohen: the famous pianist who collected art

    James Trollope

  • 'Inspired! Art inspired by literature, theatre, and music' at London's Guildhall Art Gallery

    Katty Pearce

  • Brian 'Freddy' Foskett: photographing jazz legends

    National Jazz Archive

  • Marie Laurencin's 'Vase de Fleurs'

    Gabrielle Gale

  • Goldie
    Goldie, Wolverhampton and the graffiti revolution

    Sam Moore

  • c.1905, vintage bromide print, published by Breitkopf & Hartel
    The life and music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

    Andrew Shore

  • A portrait of singer and composer Richard Leveridge discovered in the Warwick Town Council collection

    Olive Baldwin and Thelma Wilson

  • Saint Cecilia: patron saint of musicians

    Andrew Shore

  • Sculptures of note: busts of composers in the nation's collection

    Andrew Shore

  • Music and abstract painting: the case of Kandinsky and Wagner

    Peter Vergo

  • The Eurovision art contest

    Lydia Figes

  • Pop stars and portraits

    Victoria Rodrigues O'Donnell

  • ‘APES**T – THE CARTERS’, music video still
    Art Matters podcast: when Beyoncé goes APES**T

    Ferren Gipson

  • Art Matters podcast: art references in hip hop music

    Ferren Gipson

  • Henry Wood painting in Scotland, 1938
    An artist in more ways than one: the paintings of Sir Henry Wood

    James Trollope

  • 'Ravishing blind harmony': John Parry, the famous Welsh harper, and images of blindness in art

    Steph Roberts

  • Ivon Hitchens' 'Mural'

    Lucy Ellis

  • A John Piper jewel at Benjamin Britten's home, The Red House

    Christopher Hilton

  • Paul Robeson: political activist, Renaissance man

    Marjorie H. Morgan

  • Breaking Up of the Blue Stocking Club
    Who were the Bluestockings?

    Lydia Figes

  • c.1734, oil on canvas by Giovanni Paolo Panini (1691–1765)
    Art Matters podcast: music theory, maths and elevating visual art

    Ferren Gipson

  • Nicolas Poussin and the musical time bomb

    Nick Trend

Learning resources

  • cdnii-ken-j910551-001-1.jpg
    Lesson plan
    Make some noise! Explore string instruments
    • KS1 (ENG)
      KS1 (NI)
      CfE L1 (SCO)
      PS2 (WAL)
      KS2 (ENG)
      KS2 (NI)
      CfE L2 (SCO)
      PS3 (WAL)
  • cuii-maa-2015-242-1-9-001-1.jpg
    Lesson plan
    Make some noise! Explore percussion instruments
    • KS1 (ENG)
      KS1 (NI)
      CfE L1 (SCO)
      PS2 (WAL)
      KS2 (ENG)
      KS2 (NI)
      CfE L2 (SCO)
      PS3 (WAL)
  • bcn-nmg-1975-216-t12-001-1.jpg
    Lesson plan
    Make some noise! Explore wind instruments
    • KS1 (ENG)
      KS2 (ENG)
      KS1 (NI)
      KS2 (NI)
      CfE L1 (SCO)
      CfE L2 (SCO)
      PS2 (WAL)
      PS3 (WAL)
  • LSE_HOM_1998_404-001.jpg
    Lesson plan
    Afrikan-Caribbean Masquerade
    • KS2 (ENG)
      KS2 (NI)
      CfE L2 (SCO)
      PS3 (WAL)
      KS3 (ENG)
      KS3 (NI)
      CfE L3 (SCO)
      KS3 (WAL)
  • ny-yag-yorag-2007-952-001-1.jpg
    Activity
    Art Riffs: Collage an abstract rhythm inspired by Bridget Riley
    • KS2 (ENG)
      KS2 (NI)
      CfE L2 (SCO)
      PS3 (WAL)
      KS3 (ENG)
      KS3 (NI)
      CfE L3 (SCO)
      KS3 (WAL)
      KS4 (ENG)
      KS4 (NI)
      CfE L4 (SCO)
      KS4 (WAL)

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Art UK is the operating name of the Public Catalogue Foundation, a charity registered in England and Wales (1096185) and Scotland (SC048601).

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® is a registered trade mark of the Public Catalogue Foundation.
Art UK is the operating name of the Public Catalogue Foundation, a charity registered in England and Wales (1096185) and Scotland (SC048601).