Colours have their own sound, too. So thought Wassily Kandinsky, one of the leading exponents of abstract art at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. According to the Russian painter, a special link exists between art and music. Indeed, his colourful works were conceived like true symphonies. “Red is vital and has the sound of a tuba, orange is energetic and resounds like a bell, yellow rings like a trumpet and is bursting, green is opulent, contented and recalls the violin”, wrote the famous abstractionist.
Nonetheless, Kandinsky was not the only one to identify connections between these two forms of expression. The ancient Greeks were the first to devise a color scale divided into seven parts, just like the seven notes of the musical scale. Three centuries before Kandinsky, the Milanese painter Giuseppe Arcimboldi created a scale of chromatic values starting from the Pythagorean system of harmonic proportions between tones and semitones.
The series of videos Variations on colour originates also from these suggestions: each color can be associated with a certain music; it is enough to be capable of grasping the rhythm and tuning in to the emotions it transmits. Hence, we have devised four “episodes” and as many mood boards, set in our garden in Meda and conceived to present outdoor materials, yarns and fabrics in different shades of the same colour, and have combined them, each time, with specific musical variations.
A project born from the desire to showcase outdoor living atmospheres according to Paola Lenti: “settings” in which nature, furniture and colours harmoniously interact, like instruments do in a symphony.
Each video is named after a different colour, each corresponding to one of the new chromatic proposals in Paola Lenti collections: Yellow (in A Major), Green (in F Major), Blue (in D minor) and Pink (in C Major).
Besides, they coincide with some of the shades celebrated by Pantone, the bible of color, in the new 2023 catalogue, like Viva Magenta, colour of the year, a warm shade of fuchsia, “vibrating with vim and vigour and promoting joy”.
Green – synonym of nature and well-being – and blue “ with its quiet and deep sound” in the infinite shades varying from pale blue to indigo, are also two of the colour-symbol of the company: available in thousands of shades, they have contributed to making Paola Lenti collections unmistakable in the world.
While pink, as noted in The Secret Lives of Colour by British Kassia St Clair, conveys calm and fosters relaxation. A feeling that corresponds to Paola Lenti’s philosophy: designing products that make people feel good.
Directed by Maurizio Natta
Filmed and edited by Fabrizio Polla Mattiot
Soundtrack Universal Music Publishing Ricordi Srl
