A minor - Research on Harmony - Variation 2 — Acrylic on Linen Canvas by Arnaud Quercy

About This Artwork

This acrylic painting translates the opening twelve bars of Bach's Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor (BWV 1041) into visual form. Using chromesthetic mapping, the composition assigns colors to the notes of the A minor triad: orange-yellow for A, red for C, and yellow for E. The result is a large-format work on linen canvas that converts a specific passage of Baroque music into geometric abstraction.

Red fills most of the surface, carrying the sparser eighth-note texture of Bach's opening. Against this expansive field, a dense cluster of dark, angular geometric forms occupies the upper-left quadrant. These stacked shapes correspond to the buildup of sixteenth-note passages in the concerto — compressed ascending tension rendered as layered blocks of brown, grey, pink, and ochre. Tan and peach tones frame portions of the edges, creating a muted border that sets off the central red. The two zones coexist on the canvas rather than reading as a sequence: tension and release held at the same time.

An isolated red circle sits apart from the geometric cluster, marking the high C played by the violin at bars ten and eleven. This is the apex of the ascending phrase before the texture opens, and its separation from the surrounding mass identifies it as the structural pivot of the passage. The eighty by eighty centimetre format gives each element room to register at its own scale, with the geometric concentration reading against the open red field.

As part of the Synesthetic Explorations collection, this piece belongs to the Research on Harmony series. It carries certificate of authenticity number 20240718-0185 and bears the artist's signature at the lower right.