Tritone (E, Bb) - Reflexions 9 — Acrylic on Paper by Arnaud Quercy

About This Artwork

"Tritone (E, Bb) - Reflexions 9" translates a specific musical interval into visual form using chromesthetic mapping. Part of the Synesthetic Explorations collection, the work takes the tritone E–Bb as its subject — an interval that divides both the chromatic scale and the circle of fifths into two equal halves. Under Quercy's mapping system, E corresponds to yellow and Bb to blue-violet, complementary colors occupying opposite positions on the color wheel. The painting makes this structural symmetry visible as a direct chromesthetic equivalent, not as illustration or analogy.

The composition organizes three distinct zones across a vertical format. A broad yellow field fills the upper portion of the paper, rendered in warm ochre and khaki tones. Below, a deep violet-purple ground fills the lower half — built from very dark purples layering into indigo and darkslateblue. Where the two zones meet, a near-black vertical rectangle sits at the boundary, positioned to the right of center. This dark form encodes C, the root of the dominant seventh chord C7, of which E and Bb are the defining third and seventh. A cooler blue-violet register runs along the edges and border area, creating a contained field around the central opposition. The surface shows consistent, moderately smooth acrylic application with high overall contrast — the bright yellow field against the deep violet ground pushes near-maximum chromatic distance. Small traces of warm neutral and yellow-green tones appear at the margins as accents.

The work measures twenty-one by twenty-nine and a half centimeters, acrylic on paper, created in France in 2023. It is the ninth work in the Reflexions series within the Synesthetic Explorations collection. The artist signed the work on the back; certificate of authenticity number 20231231-0044. The work has been sold and is held in a private collection in Ajaccio, France.