From the Plastic Arts to Music. Perre Boulez listens to Paul Klee

Abstract

We discuss the issue of how to analyze relations between the different arts (particularly between music and painting) in terms which do justice to the complex nature of such relations. First we enumerate and briefly examine three main classical methodological approaches to the issue: one which considers artworks as inserted in a Zeitgeist, common and characteristic of their respective epochs; another one that tries to elucidate a certain common theme or subject by taking into account the personal poetic universes of the individual artists; and a third one, which focuses exclusively on the immanent elements of structural affinity between the arts which are being compared. An additional, fourth approach is considered, one that leans on the creative, perceptual strategies manifesting themselves in artworks. Then, we discuss a text by Pierre Boulez on Paul Klee, which does not exclusively espouse any of these four approaches, but rather explores all of them. We will show how the gaze Boulez casts on Klee, from creator to creator, illustrates and reveals that, among all four methods, it is the fourth one which turns out to be the most fecund, particularly in terms of its consequences for poietic activity itself – on the condition that our thought be granted the possibility to reveal the poietic process, which may not necessarily be evident to all and every observer.