The other day I was listening to Margaret Throsby interview author Sonya Hartnett on Classic FM. Sonya Hartnett chose Pachelbel's Canon as one of her favourite pieces of music. If you don't know the name of this piece of music you will certainly recognize the tune, it is ubiquitous in shopping centres and lifts, but, as Harnett pointed out just because it is played in shopping centres doesn't make it any less beautiful. I totally agree. I've been listening to Pachelbel's Canon for many years and it has taken on a new importance in my life as a mother- it works calming magic on manic two year olds and manic 36 year olds!
Pachelbel's Cannon has also had great signifigance in my artistic life. Wallowing in the post-modern sea at art college Paul Klee (1879-1940)was my lifeline. His elegant, scientific lyrical explorations of colour and line inspired and comforted me. Klee developed a "Canon of Colour Tonality", a formalized graph of colour relationships using lines, circles and triangles. This sounds very dry and boring but Klee's explorations were fascinating and beautiful.
Klee said:
"There are two things in a painter, the eye and the mind;each of them should aid the other. It is necessary to work at their mutual development, in the eye by looking at nature,in the mind by the logic of organized sensations which provides the means of expression."
