Blue Music, by Norbert Kovacs

Three Musicians, by Pablo Picasso (Spain) 1921

Blue Music

The picture the three musicians make in performing on stage long has engaged us. We like to point out Pierrot fingering his clarinet, Harlequin strumming his guitar, the monk clasping his music sheet. They look attuned to us, their audience, their eyes eager to read our faces. The three make a musical trio if we ever saw one.

But lately, we've had some doubts about them. Some of us wonder about the monk being there as he doesn't perform any instrument. He may have sung at some time, but the long fabric masking his mouth seems it would give him trouble doing that now. As for Harlequin, our friends point out his guitar lacks a neck with strings; really, he just fingers two brown and black sticks. Sticks! And then Pierrot hasn't an arm for his left hand playing the clarinet. His hands are too small as are Harlequin's and the monk's. When we consider these shortcomings in the men, we have wondered if the musicians aren't playing us for a ruse. It appears they could be putting on the show of performing music rather than actually performing any.

Then, one of us points out the blue colour painted on the three. An unbroken swath of the hue masks Harlequin's eyes and streams across Pierrot's left side. We ask if the musicians really could be bound in blue, as the picture makes it appear, and realize that is exactly the case. The three men are performing a piece of music for us together. We hear one performance, after all, not several. The idea of the three in union, suddenly intuitive to us, opens our minds to possibilities about the musicians. The blue could mark the space their music occupies in being performed, we think. Harlequin gives it his cunning eyes, Pierrot, his busy arm and broad torso.  Pierrot's cheeks show the colour, blowing into his woodwind. Harlequin jags his elbow, fingering the guitar, and blue surrounds it in plucked melodies.

We turn to the monk. The blue colour makes the natural heart of notes and bars on his music sheet. We realize he is holding up the score his companions follow. One of us says they seem to appreciate him for it.

We note that the great form of blue sends down an appendage, a leg, on either side of the group. One hangs coyly off the table end on the monk's robe, as if to embrace him there. The other sits under Pierrot's shoe, right by his dog's paw. When Pierrot taps his foot to the music, the blue moves his in sync. The colour has a friendly, social aspect, we admit.
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The blue spreads over much of the painting, our group notes. We step back to take it all in and discover the colour has a sort of figure. Our interpretation widens. We say the blue is the picture's fourth person, made by the three presenting their music. It is the music itself. We recognize its ephemeral form that embraces all three of its creators as their product. The blue music cannot live without their effort, being at bottom a projection of them, not unlike how the dark shadow in the corner projects Pierrot's dog. But the three musicians have given the music an essence other than the ones they have as separate men; they have allowed that essence to gain cogency and definition--like themselves, complete with colour, borders, a shape. Our group of art lovers agrees then that, while starting with the fragments of themselves, the three musicians have produced music of a greater dimension than any of them have alone.

Norbert Kovacs

Norbert Kovacs lives and writes in Hartford, Connecticut. He loves visiting art museums, especially the Met in New York. He has published stories recently in The Ekphrastic Review and Timada's Diary. His website: http://www.norbertkovacs.net.