For the past two months, 4th graders have been immersed in the nexus between visual art and music, collaborating to create musical compositions based on each other’s visual compositions.

The project began in art class with an introduction to the value scale and mixing tints and shades of a color. We then took a deep dive into abstract art, exploring the many methods artists use to alter their subject matter, sometimes changing it so much that it becomes something totally new. Students were introduced to the artist and musician, Charles Brooks. After traveling the world for 20 years as a cellist, Brooks took up photography, focusing on the interiors of instruments. His close-up shots of the details and insides of instruments transformed them into landscapes, abstract designs, and architectural wonders. The students were challenged to take their own close-up, cropped pictures of their band instruments and take them a step further by using them as inspiration for a monochromatic abstract painting.

In their classrooms and in music with Mr. Mather, students read the book The Noisy Paint Box, and were reminded about the artist, Wassily Kandinsky, who is known for his brightly colored abstract paintings based on pieces of music. Kandinsky had synesthesia, a condition in which the senses become crossed. In Kandinsky’s case, he was able to see sounds as colors, which he expressed through his art.

Once the paintings were finished, the students interpreted each other’s artworks using sound, composing and recording original pieces of music with Mr. Mather. Their photographs, paintings, and musical works will be on display during the Grandparents and Special Friends’ Day/Arts and Humanities Festival on Friday, May 8.