Where Music Becomes Paint

“A painting is music you can see. Music is a painting you can hear.”— Miles Davis

There’s a rhythm to brushstrokes and a melody in colors. Artists and musicians have long explored the connection between sight and sound.

Known for his ground-breaking jazz, Miles Davis also created vibrant, abstract paintings later in life. To him, painting was just another form of improvisation.

Art as Sound, Sound as Art

The idea of an art-music connection isn’t unique to Davis. Throughout history, creatives have sought to blur the lines between these disciplines.

Wassily Kandinsky, one of the pioneers of abstract art, believed that colors could sing and shapes could vibrate. He once wrote:

“Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings.”

He often titled his paintings like musical pieces — Improvisation, Composition, Fugue.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, with his chaotic, graffiti-inspired canvases, drew from jazz and hip-hop. Many of his paintings reference musical legends like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. He once said:

“I want to make paintings like music you can see.”

Centuries earlier, Leonardo da Vinci observed the kinship between these arts:

“Painting is a music the deaf can see and music is a painting the blind can hear.”

The Language of the Senses

Some artists and musicians literally see sound or hear color — a neurological phenomenon called synesthesia.

Composer Alexander Scriabin created symphonies tied to specific color palettes.

Painter David Hockney associates colors with particular musical tones.

Even without synesthesia, we instinctively borrow musical language to describe visual art — rhythm, harmony, composition, tone, texture.

And we use visual language for music — bright, dark, colorful, sharp.

Goethe wrote:

“Music is liquid architecture; architecture is frozen music.”

Across all cultures, we seem to understand the shared language of art and music.

My Experience

I don’t have synesthesia, but when I’m painting, I am aware of the interplay between music and art. It feels like I’m composing an orchestral piece and I’m juggling the various parts. At times, I want the rhythm of the piece to come forward. At other times, the color is dominant. And sometimes, the dark rumbling in the background gives the work its necessary weight.

I believe both creative forms come from the same source — emotion, intuition, and a desire to translate the invisible.

Whether you're standing in front of a painting or listening to a piece of music, you're engaging with something that transcends language. Art and music invite you to feel, to imagine, and to move beyond the literal.

In those moments, art and music reveal their truest gift. We leave the logical world behind and enter the deeper world of emotion.