Beethoven's Pulse in Oil Colors: Frauenschuh's Symphony Studies (1/3)

Studies on the 7th Symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven

Today I immerse myself once again in the world of Ludwig van Beethoven, in his music and his life. Already in the early morning, I let his 7th Symphony flood the room while I paint with oil on plywood. I consciously chose the wooden support: plywood gives me the freedom to cut, shape, and give the painting an organic form later – just as Beethoven understood his music not as a static object but as a malleable, living force.

I soon adjusted the volume upwards. I try to synchronize the rhythmic waves of the symphony with my own breathing and also synchronize my brushstrokes rhythmically. This work, so vital and organically structured, seems to me like a living being or a living organism that breathes and grows.

My color selection today revolves around yellow and green tones. Shapes emerge that remind me of insect armor and seashells – structures that appear as alive in their construction as the music I am listening to. Shapes and colors slide over the wood, intertwine, separate again – like motifs in Beethoven's seventh symphony that constantly dissolve and recombine.

While I paint, it becomes clear to me how much my painting activity today resembles kneading modeling clay a relentless pressing, pulling, reshaping until new forms emerge. Almost like an act of creation or as in the Frankenstein story, in which life is created from non-life. In this act, the alchemical formula resonates for me "Solve et Coagula" resounds: dissolve and bring together, take apart and reconnect. It's as if something dissolves during the painting process, possibly old visual certainties, to then recombine into something that breathes, pulsates, and perhaps exists somewhere in an intermediate area between music and visual form.

The relentless forward drive of Beethoven's 7th Symphony guides my hand and I keep asking myself: Where does sound end, where does form begin? Where does music end and where does the image begin? What pulse might music and painting share? And can the creature before me perhaps breathe like a living being once it is cut out of the wood and placed in space?