Interior with Music

In Interior with Music, slinking lines and angular forms rhythmically divide an assemblage of intersecting planes to create a visual symphony that viewers not only see but hear. Like European avant-garde artists such as James Abbott Mcneill Whistler and Wassily Kandinsky, Weber blurs sight and sound by translating music into the visual language of line, color, and form. In other words, Interior with Music visually captures the experience of listening to music as it “wafts in space.” Consider how Weber transforms music into a visual format through swooping lines and swatches of color. What sounds, instruments, or emotions does this painting bring to mind? Is there a particular song that you hear? Try comparing Interior with Music to Russian composer Igor Stravinsky’s introduction to The Rite of Spring (1913). What do Weber and Stravinsky’s works have in common? What differentiates them? By attuning ourselves to the sound of visual elements, we learn to hear what we see and embrace “moments when our senses seem to take on the functions of each other.”