A note to my new subscribers! Thanks for taking the time to check out my project, and follow along as I traverse the country. It means a lot to me that you are all interested in my compositional process and the artwork that inspires me.

These next couple of entries are still a backlog from earlier in the tour — they are notes I journaled and never intended to publish, so they are my genuine, authentic, and often vulnerable thoughts! I hope these musings cause you to feel or learn something. Don’t hesitate to reach out to me with comments!

Dear reader,

Alas, we arrive in Minneapolis, a city that I had been looking forward to due to its extreme cold, which of course, for anyone who knows me well, knows that I love. I thoroughly enjoyed this city, and hope to return at some point in the future. The company housing was downtown and it honestly felt a touch dangerous, but I frequently escaped to the North Loop which was a neighborhood of boutique shops and restaurants. It was very enjoyable and definitely one of my favorite haunts I’ve discovered on this tour.

For our company Holiday Party, I was given this black cashmere scarf by the shows lead, who was my Secrete Santa. I cherish it; a perfect gift for the sub zero temperatures.

Painting tl;dr

1. CITY: Minneapolis

2. MUSEUM: Minneapolis Institute of Art

3. PAINTING: View of Tangier from the Seashore

4. ARTIST: Eugène Delacroix

5. OBSERVATION DATE: Dec 17, 2022

Music tl;dr

1. CITY: Nashville, TN

2. HOTEL: Embassy Suites

3. AUDIO SKETCH: On Tangier, for Delacroix

4. COMPOSER: Niles Luther

5. CREATION DATE: Jan 13, 2023

The Museum

Unfortunately, I felt that Minneapolis Institute of Art was an unremarkable museum; Nothing stirred me, or made me feel alive. Walker Art Center, the museum I went to afterwards, was significantly more interesting, but contemporary art is still off limits.

I felt clickbaited by the Botticelli special exhibition — the description included the name of his most famous painting The Birth of Venus, and the birth of Venus was most assuredly not there. Please reimburse me for my ticket by collecting this entry 🙃 

(for the uninitiated, this means connecting your Ethereum wallet and purchasing an edition of this entry! Yes, each of these blog posts is a collectable NFT that has been minted on the blockchain. At the bottom of each post you can see the contract details)

The Painting

I’m choosing this Delacroix because it feels fresh to me, and will provide variety to the collection, away from the Italian Baroque masters. I’m eager to explore some interesting sounds with this one.

Delacroix was one of the most influential artists in history. His painting style was ahead of his time, shocking or disgusting most artists of the French Academy, the authority on visual art in the 1700s and 1800s. He was not interested in creating an exact replica of what he saw, rather he sought to express feelings though his art. His loose brushwork and use of color evoke emotions inspired the French Impressionists and many other artists. He created this work many years after visiting Africa, and the passing of time allowed his memories and impressions to influence the painting more than the reality of his observations.

This painting once belonged to James J. Hill (1838- 1916), the Minnesota railroad magnate whose collection of European paintings forms the basis of the Institute's nineteenth-century holdings.

Bequest of Mrs. Erasmus C. Lindley in memory of her father, James J. Hill 49.4

Wall text for View of Tangier from the Seashore. Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota

Musical Response

The following music NFT is my initial response to Eugène Delacroix's View of Tangier from the Seashore, recorded on Jan 13, 2023 via voice memo at the Embassy Suites in Nashville, TN. The cover art is a sineprint (a graphed room frequency response) of my room in the hotel.

I struggled to come up with music I myself am convinced by in this audio sketch. I think this is actually a good thing. The painting is pushing me out of my comfort zone, asking me to search for sounds that I have not yet imagined, and I believe if I follow this path further, it will lead to my growth as a composer.

That’s all for now.

Most sincerely,
Niles Luther