Instruments with painted decorations

[Stephen Faulk]

Which instruments that are painted with decorations on catch your eye and why?

 

We been doing instruments in paintings, now let's look at painted instruments and why they were painted on. 

 

Many instruments were decorated to show which noble house they belonged to, but are there other reasons? 

 

 

_______________

 

*Anyone who stars any interpersonal navel gazing will get dope slapped. *    

 

 

[martin swan]

I love the Lupot in the Ashmolean ....

[martin swan]

By the way Stephen you seem to be doing doubles of everything

[Stephen Faulk]

It's my touchpad, it is getting old and sensitive like me. Sorry. 

[Kate Mohr]

Are there any modern makers that paint scenes on their instruments? I thought maybe I saw one withe some filigree painted on it at the last VSA competition.

[go_oa]

    Anne Cole sometimes paints the inside of her instrument.

[Kate Mohr]

Anne-Cole-Viola.pnghttp:/home/oaw/Music/Anne-Cole-Viola.png    Anne Cole sometimes paints the inside of her instrument.

I saw one of those in the shop in Cleveland! It was cute, it had a field mouse in it and I think the tail was carved into the scroll or something.

Is she the only one?

[go_oa]

Gliga  Creation of Adam.

[Addie]

Fav's would be any of the painted Amatis. Modern would be the painted Gligas, which make me cringe.

[Addie]

Gliga  Creation of Adam.

Oh! I just posted that I hate these. Am I going to get slapped?

[Ron1]

Knute Reindahl, in addition to carved decoration, usually to the head, used pyrography to achieve decoration on a small number of instruments.

 

 

[Doug Cotterill]

Are there any replicas of the painted Amatis which show what the paintings would have looked like when new? I have seen the worn paint imitated.

[romberg flat]

Can’t say that I like the painting, but Nakazawa's tsunami violins have some story. 

 

 

[Berl Mendenhall]

The old Amait works, the new ones, not so much.   Actually not at all.  Not a fan of decorated instruments either.  

[Roger Hargrave]

The problem seems to be matching what is essentially a central European baroque design, to modern and often international 'artwork'. This is why classical decoration generally works best on fiddles. The best and very worst examples of decoration on modern instruments is that found on electric guitars. Fortunately I don't have access to any illustrations, otherwise some of you might start criticising my taste.  

[Stephen Faulk]

 

 

 

Can’t say that I like the painting, but Nakazawa's tsunami violins have some story. 

 

tsunami violin - nakazawa.jpg tsunami-violin-peintre-cadreserrehome.jpg

 I know that story. The tsunami in 2011 wiped out a whole area except for the one tree, it's become a symbol. 

[Kev Chanot]

Are there any replicas of the painted Amatis which show what the paintings would have looked like when new? I have seen the worn paint imitated.

Yes,I believe one of the Chanot/Chardon family made a replica of a painted Amati cello.Don't know who owns it now.Perhaps someone here can post a picture of it ?

[Ken_N]

I like the purfling "lilies" and other things on Bescian instruments,  and the other little inlay, and gold leaf in the corners.  But there is a fine line between getting them right, and making something gaudy.  We were going thru the mall yesterday, and I saw some Polo Ralph Lauren sweaters with HUGE logos and insignias on them.  Really?  That's as gaudy as can be.

Ken

[romberg flat]

 I know that story. The tsunami in 2011 wiped out a whole area except for the one tree, it's become a symbol. 

Yes. Here is that touching story:

 

[Addie]

The problem seems to be matching what is essentially a central European baroque design, to modern and often international 'artwork'. This is why classical decoration generally works best on fiddles. The best and very worst examples of decoration on modern instruments is that found on electric guitars. Fortunately I don't have access to any illustrations, otherwise some of you might start criticising my taste.

Roger, didn't you get started with copying painted Amatis? Any pictures?

[Ben Hebbert]

I think the thing we don't necessarily realise - it's so obvious that it needs to be spelt out - is that the people in the deep and distant past who invented the violin really wanted to show off the wood, and show off the quality of varnish. In a sense (which has more plausibility to a Renaissance pair of ears) they were probably looking towards the idea of the violin as more about "nature" than "artifice" - this idea has other resonances, for example the latin motto that saw much use in the sixteenth-century DUM VIXI TACUI MORTUA DULCE CANO (In life I was silent, in death I sing) which relates to the nature of wood in tone production - but places the onus of sound on wood's natural properties rather than on the artifice of building a "machine" - a pipe organ, but contrast was an "artificial" instrument - entirely man-made. Since there have been about 300 years of MN-type debates from the 15th to the 18th centuries without anyone becoming very clear on the subject, I don't think it's worth getting bogged down with it now - suffice to say, that's what made them happy. 

 

The result is that when you look at a heavily decorated harpsichord (as all harpsichords are) you are looking at a piece of "artifice", but when you are looking at a violin you are looking at something that has been crafted out of nature - bringing out the "mortua dulce cano" by the intervention of the human hand upon something that is already "there"... 

 

I think that this provides *an* explanation for why the violin is never really decorated, except through the choice and application of different woods. A large geometric inlay, is more "nature", but painting the same would be "artifice" from a humanist-16th-century view. Harpsichords (often described as machines, contraptions, etc) are artifice, and so the decoration means that they are entirely covered in human-contrived-decoration. The violin (and before it the borrowed mythology of the greek lyre) is always steeped in nature. 

 

When Andrea Amati paints his instruments, he seems to be the exception to prove the rule. He uses the wood and varnish as the background, so that more than 50% of the back is the natural appearance showing through, with just ornaments here and there which give the instrument context and accentuate the intended appearance and message of the instrument. It works - at least to a modern eye that is accustomed to seeing wooden instruments. 

 

With modern painted instruments there may be a second reason why they don't quite make us excited. We (and particularly people like musicians and violin makers who pursue skills to unusually high levels) tend to feel a kind of contempt for the hubris of certain kinds of modern art. With this in mind, a violin - however cheap and useless - is at least symbolic of an art form that requires enormous dedication to master. When an artist with half the skills decides to destroy that symbolic object as a part of their supposed creativity, it's an insult. It says, "my painting of a cow on the back of a violin is  equal to or worth more than the entire achievement of violin makers and players". 

 

Although this "work of art" by Arman isn't a painted violin it proves my point. Entitled 24 Caprices de Paganini, it's a naff Mirecourt violin that would be an affront to Paganini if he ever saw it, and that would be lucky to find £100 in auction if it were complete. But thanks the the kind of bandsawing that none of us would ever admit to, and an enormous dose of hubris, this piece that insults the very nature of musicianship made £91,000 at auction - bought and sold by people who presumably have an equally remote relationship with music.

 

[DGV]

Thank you Ben for your insights.  Maybe that explains my affinity for the violin family and bamboo flutes.

[Stephen Faulk]

Oh boy another modern art hater. Well I don't try convert anyone, so I'll not say anything about it. 

 

I actually disagree on the point of harpsicords being painted on because they are mechanical. It's more simple than a twist in humanist philosophy. Harpsicords have vast expanses of flat planes and the maker could command a higher price for a finely decorated instrument. Flat surfaces are easier to paint than curved surfaces and violin joinery is intrinsic to the beauty value of the instrument. 

 

The large flat ares of harpsicords were made of boards that were edge joined and many joints had to be made and pieces scarfed together to make the large flat planes. Makers covered the boards with gesso or glued linen to them in an effort to cover the unslightly joints and create a unified surface that needed to be painted. Some harpsicords as plain and have a few colors and others are painted with elaborate scenes, because they surfaces are flat. 

 

I was trying get at the reasons why violins- celli were painted not why they were not painted. 

 

See in a harpsicord they wanted to hide the joints, on a violin the joints were left in plain view as a show off move. It's not in my opinion an elaborate philosophical construct, it's just basic common sense in design.  

___________

[DGV]

If you are into minimalism, the best painting could actually be no painting.

[Craig Tucker]

Yes, that is quite a thought provoking dialogue Ben, and I must say that I absolutely agree with the heart of the matter that you provide and have written or spoken about above. It's interesting that there are never really many (virtually none) decorated violins that attract a great "mass affection" (instruments maybe, violins, no)  and the ones that are decorative, outside of their innate form and natural wooden exterior, are never really attractive much to me either.

he hideous habit of painting modern cheap acoustic violins (solid colors) that are sold to school kids, are another form of "abomination"... simply to promote sales, I think... 

 

On the other hand, I believe that many of the Electric Violins that I have seen, are made with modern or even a minimalist design in mind, and it works for many of them, design wise... but I haven't even seen many of these electrics (violins) that have been painted on the exterior attractively either. What does attract me to many of these modern examples is their mechanical design and symmetry or even their pronounced asymmetry, alone...

 

Just a thought here, but there is the almost mindless (or perhaps it would be more correct to say "thoughtless"  or perhaps "uninspected") association of violins in (our) modern culture with, for example, Stradivari, and people and makers of that era, and the desire, I think, is that this is what we'll see when we see a violin.

A scene or painting on the exterior of something like a violin automatically (for me, that is) sets up a duality of points of interest. Are we supposed to observe the illustration, or the design and quality of the instrument?

One should come before the other, and in most cases the attention to the violin as an artifact in and by itself, is foremost in most peoples mind, and the decorations that adorn the violin cannot really overpower the violins innate qualities as an object of design and "ornamentation" by itself.

 

So, most 'adorning artwork' on a violin is almost automatically coming in a distant second place (I'm talking about the subconscious or automatic response of most people - including, by the way, me) with regard to the design and innate qualities we expect to see or to "adorn" the violin.

 

Simply put - most all "adornment" comes in a distant second to the adornment of nature, that most people want or expect to see, on a violin.