word painting

“Also, there’s very traditional word painting. You go up to heaven, and he goes up the scale. It’s this wonderful combination of trickery and things that are quite obvious and theatrical.”

Adams enunciated words like a deep-toned voice-over artist and used classic Handelian word painting in the aria “The people that walked in darkness,” adopting a shadowy tone before opening up into resplendent high notes on the word “light.”

By the end, after sadly beautiful word painting with the “Kyrie eleison” text and a clarinet solo of upward runs, Bryan arrives at a finale that is less restful and resolved than a traditional Requiem’s, but more cyclical, closing with the “mmm” vocalise that started the piece.

I chose the word “painting” because when I was in grad school — other painters have had this experience too — painting was dead.

To drive home the fickleness of the salesroom, Christie’s, on Wednesday, achieved an auction high for an Ed Ruscha work, fetching $52.5 million for the Prince of Pop’s 1964 word painting “Hurting the Word Radio #2.”