Sonorité jaune - Richard Mortensen (1910-1993)

Richard Mortensen (1910-1993)

“Sonorité jaune”

Gouache and graphite on heavy paper

Date 1957

Excellent condition

Dimensions 31.5 X 49 cm - framed 34.5 X 52.5 cm

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Circumstance of production :
Work created for a film project by Jacques Polieri in 1957 after a composition by Vassily Kandinsky from 1908-1909.

Related works :
The Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou holds four gouaches from the suite entitled “Sonorité jaune”. These four gouaches became part of the national collections following a bequest by Nina Kandinsky (widow of Vassily Kandinsky) in 1981; gouaches no. V, VII, XXVII, XLVI A .

Genesis of the work :
Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), in his work “The Spiritual in Art and Painting in Particular”, offers examples of what he calls “colored hearing”. Together with musician Arnold Schoenberg, he associates colors with specific instruments: yellow for the trumpet, orange for the viola, red for the tuba...etc.

Kandinsky, an adept of total art, combining painting, music, dance, theater and literature, and captivated by color theory, intended to offer a sensory experience and project the spectator into another world.

Sonorité jaune was a project conceived for the stage by Kandinsky in 1909. Despite two attempts, this highly avant-garde project never came to fruition.

In 1956, director Jacques Polieri (1928-2011), fascinated by innovation and the avant-garde, discovered the work.
A proponent of total art and the confrontation between the two, he set about directing and planning a film. The pictorial element is the starting point, around which music, dance, song, acting and even text are built.

Musician Jean Barraqué (1928-1973) worked out the structure of a musical score. Composers Pierre Boulez, lannis Xenakis and choreographer Maurice Béjart show their interest.

Recommended by Nina Kandinsky (Kandinsky's widow), Richard Mortensen isolates himself in Hennequeville (Calvados) and creates the “Sonorité jaune” suite.
It would be almost twenty years before the premiere of “Sonorité jaune” (score by Alfred Schnittke, public rehearsal August 6, 1975, Sanctuaire de la Sainte-Baume). The world premiere followed at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on March 4, 1976.