TitleFuga
Artist
Edwin Howland Blashfield
(American, 1848 - 1936)
Date1932
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 72 × 48 in.
SignedSigned center right: "Edwin H. Blashfield 1932"; lower left: "E. H. Blashfield"
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, Gift of Mrs. Edwin H. Blashfield, 1937
Object number100-P
Label TextFrom his earliest student days, Blashfield enjoyed an appreciation for music. Late in life, he remembered time spent in New York in the mid-1880s: "I was very fond of music, and in the old Academy of Music I heard many operas, and I had the pleasure of hearing such singers as Kellogg, Adeline Patti, and others" (Lockman interview). Later, Blashfield painted several works with musical themes, such as his mural for the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, Music and the Dance.Fuga, a late work, shows an interest in fantastic visual approximation of the sounds of music. An organist in eighteenth-century costume and playing by candlelight, appears unaware of the flock of blue and pink cherubs which swells upward, evoking the sounds of chords pumped from the pipes.
