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Design Thinking
Design Thinking is a set of strategic and creative processes and principles
used in the planning and creation of products and solutions to human-
centered design problems.
With design and innovation being two key driving principles, this series
focuses on, but not limited to, the following areas and topics:
• Psychology of Design
• Ergonomic Design
Mathias Funk
Yu Zhang
Coding Art: A Guide to Unlocking Your Creativity with the Processing
Language and p5.js in Four Simple Steps
Mathias Funk Yu Zhang
Eindhoven, The Netherlands Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Acknowledgments����������������������������������������������������������������������������xvii
Chapter 1: Introduction������������������������������������������������������������������������1
1.1. Coding Art������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������3
1.2. Motivation������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������4
1.2.1. How to Talk with a “Machine”���������������������������������������������������������������4
1.2.2. Practice a Practice��������������������������������������������������������������������������������5
1.2.3. Do It and Own It�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������6
1.3. How to Read This Book����������������������������������������������������������������������������������7
1.3.1. Calling All Creatives�������������������������������������������������������������������������������7
1.3.2. Four Steps, One Example, One Zoom�����������������������������������������������������8
1.3.3. Getting Ready��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������11
v
Table of Contents
vi
Table of Contents
4.2. MemoryDot������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������106
4.2.1. Smoothing�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������106
4.2.2. Smoothly Working with Many Things������������������������������������������������113
4.3. Using Computed Values�����������������������������������������������������������������������������116
4.3.1. Computing Values with Functions�����������������������������������������������������116
4.3.2. The Space Between Two Values: Interpolation����������������������������������122
4.3.3. Interpolation with Functions��������������������������������������������������������������124
4.4. Interactivity������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������129
4.4.1. Mouse Interaction������������������������������������������������������������������������������130
4.4.2. Keyboard Interaction�������������������������������������������������������������������������133
4.4.3. Other Input�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������142
4.5. Summary���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������143
vii
Table of Contents
viii
Table of Contents
ix
Table of Contents
x
Table of Contents
Conclusion����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������315
Epilogue��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������317
References����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������321
Index�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������325
xi
About the Authors
Mathias Funk is Associate Professor in the
Future Everyday group in the Department of
Industrial Design at the Eindhoven University
of Technology (TU/e). He has a background
in Computer Science and a PhD in Electrical
Engineering (from Eindhoven University of
Technology). His research interests include
data design methodologies, data-enabled
design, systems for musical expression, and
design tools for data and AI. In the past he has researched at ATR (Japan),
RWTH Aachen, Philips Consumer Lifestyle and Philips Experience
Design, Intel labs (Santa Clara), National Taiwan University of Science and
Technology, and National Taiwan University. He is also the co-founder of
UXsuite, a high-tech spin-off from Eindhoven University of Technology.
He has years of experience in software architecture and design, building
design tools, and web technologies. As a teacher, he teaches various
courses in the Industrial Design curriculum about designing with data and
visualization approaches, systems design, and technologies for connected
products and systems. He is regularly invited to hold international
workshops, and as an active musician for years, he is very interested in the
intersection of music, art, and design in particular.
xiii
About the Authors
xiv
About the Technical Reviewer
Dr. Bin Yu is currently an Assistant Professor
in Digital Innovation at Nyenrode Business
University. He worked in Philips Design
from 2019 to 2022. Bin received his PhD in
Industrial Design (2018) from TU/e and
M.S. in Biomedical Engineering (2012) from
Northeastern University, Shenyang, China.
Dr. Bin Yu had rich experience, from both
academia and industry, in digital product
design, user interface design, healthcare
design, and data visualization. He has published more than 40 papers in
top journals and conferences. Besides, his work has been invited to several
design exhibitions, like Dutch Design Week, Milan Design Week, New York
Design Week, and Dubai Design Week.
xv
Acknowledgments
We started this book in October 2018 and went through the process of
writing for several months, ending with an intensive summer writing
retreat at Tenjinyama Art Studio in Sapporo. We are grateful for the
hospitality and kindness of Mami Odai and her team, and we will always
remember these weeks on the hill with the wind rushing through the
dark trees.
From October 2019, we sent out the manuscript to the reviewers, and
we would like to acknowledge their hard work and sincerely thank them
for great feedback and suggestions, warm-hearted encouragement, and
praise: Loe Feijs (Eindhoven University of Technology), Jia Han (Sony
Shanghai Creative Center), Garyfalia Pitsaki (3quarters.design), Bart
Hengeveld (Eindhoven University of Technology), Joep Elderman (BMD
Studio), Ansgar Silies (independent artist), and Rung-Huei Liang (National
Taiwan University of Science and Technology). Without you, the book
would not have been as clear and rich. We also thank the great team at
Apress, Natalie and Jessica, and especially Bin Yu for his excellent technical
review. We express our gratitude to Tatsuo Sugimoto, our translator for the
Japanese edition of Coding Art. Finally, we deeply appreciate the support
from friends and family for this project.
xvii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
The art world is interwoven with technology and actually quite innovative
and playful. From cave paintings to the use of perspective, novel colors,
and lighting, to printing techniques and direct inclusion of machines and
code, there are examples of how art broke ground and changed its shape
forever. Already before the beginning of the twenty-first century, artists
used code and programmed machines to generate art or even be part of it.
There are so many examples of technology in art. It is also interesting
to see the path of how it has grown in the past 70 years. Famous examples
are, for instance, of earlier pioneers in computer art like Georg Nees,
Michael Noll, Vera Molnár, and Frieder Nake who brought the use of
pseudo-randomness and algorithm about fractals and recursion in code
drawing. The more recent generation of artists like Casey Reas, who is
well known for developing the Processing software, extend artistic ideas
through the programming language. Some artists like Jared Tarbell
introduce real data into art creation and connect the complexity with the
data availability. It is remarkable that for most of their works, computer
artists open the source code to the public, so we can learn from them.
In this book, we want to make the point that the use of modern
technology and machines in creative work does not contradict “creative
expression.” Instead, if used well, technology can help creatives take steps
in new directions, think of new ideas, and ultimately discover their ideal
form of expression.
Why data and information in art? The use of data can connect artworks
to the human body, signals from outer space, or contemporary societal
issues, important events happening all over the world. With data streams,
creative works can become “alive.” As they represent data in visual or
auditory forms, they comment on what is happening in the world; they
provide an alternative frame to news and noteworthy. They can react and
even create their own data as a response.
Why is interaction interesting for creatives? Interaction in an artwork
opens a channel for communication with individual viewers or an entire
audience. Interaction can make a work more immersive and let viewers
engage in new ways with the artist’s ideas. Some might want to engage
with art emotionally; some others prefer a more rational approach. The
creative is in charge of defining and also limiting interactivity – from fully
open access to careful limitations that preserve the overall aesthetics and
message of the work. Interaction can help create multifaceted artworks
that show different views on the world, or even allow for exploration of
unknown territory.
Using computation and code can help a creative express ideas
independent of medium and channel – the work is foremost conceptual
and can be rendered in any form susceptible to the viewer. So, when we
express an artistic concept in the form of code or machine instructions, we
can direct the machine to produce its output in a number of ways: print
a rendered image on a postcard or t-shirt, project an animation onto a
building, or make an expressive interaction accessible from a single screen
or for a global audience on the Internet. By disconnecting from physical
matter, we create ephemeral art that might even change hands and be
changed by others.
Ultimately, technology transforms what it is applied to. We show you
how to do this with creativity.
2
Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1. Coding Art
What is “coding art” all about? The title is intentionally ambiguous, ranging
in meaning from how to code art to coding as creative expression. Probably
the message that resonates most with you is somewhere in the middle.
Tips We are curious what you think during or after reading and
working with this book. Please let us know on our website.1
1
https://codingart-book.com/feedback
3
Chapter 1 Introduction
1.2. Motivation
Every profession, every vocation, is about doing something difficult with
high quality, often using specific approaches or techniques. This works for
engineers, researchers, marketing, and doing business. For creatives, the
“difficult thing” is the invention of meaning and purpose out of a large set
of options, constraints, and relations. It is a very human thing to create,
which means we apply both our intuition and our training and knowledge
to a challenge. Creatives apply various technologies in a creative process,
and coding is a part of that. In this book, the use of coding in creative
work is based on the situation that we try to construct meaning through
understanding the logic and structure of coding. We use coding as a
creative tool rather than being hardcore programmers or mere end users.
4
Chapter 1 Introduction
often than we are comfortable with, then this is on us. The machine is a
“stupid” thing, dull and rational. Whatever creativity emerges is ours only.
This book is essentially about how to let the machine express and amplify
our human creativity by using precise instructions (“code”) and input (“data”).
For many creatives, the use of code in their projects brings new
challenges, beyond successfully completing a project. For example, an
unforeseen challenge is to let the work operate reliably for hours, days, and
weeks. With traditional “static” material, creative output eventually turns
into a stable form that rests in itself. Paper, photo, clay, concrete, metal,
video, or audio documentary are stable. There are established ways to
keep them safe and maintain their quality. If you want, you can study this
conservation craft as a university subject even.
Things are different for art or design based on code. Code always
needs a machine to run on, an environment to perform its function.
This essentially counteracts technological progress: there is always a
newer machine, a more modern operating system, a more powerful way
to program something. Any of these get in and code written for earlier
machines may stop working. This does not happen that easily to a painting
or a designed and manufactured object.
1.2.2. Practice a Practice
When we write about “coding” as a practice, we try to combine the creative
process with computational thinking. Over the years, our art or design
students, inevitably, encounter similar problems. They often ask questions
like “why do we need to learn coding?”, “coding is so difficult to continue
once you are stuck, what is it worth?”, and “I could understand the
examples (from the programming software references) well, but I cannot
do my idea just by using those examples, how to do that?” These questions
(or often passionate complaints) point at the difficulty of learning coding
as a new language. It seems that there is a big disconnect of “brainy”
coding from creative practice. There is a common understanding that
5
Chapter 1 Introduction
6
Chapter 1 Introduction
In projects where code is involved, you as the creative need the ability
to read code, understand code, perhaps even write code, and think in a
computational structure. This is necessary for effectively communicating
with technology experts in a common “language.” We think these are
essential abilities creatives today need to have. Besides, creatives who rely
mostly on the help of experts often feel uncertain as to how much control
they have to relinquish to achieve their goal. We actually have a section on
working with technology experts toward the end of the book.
7
Chapter 1 Introduction
Third, this book is written for technical experts, who know it all actually
and who might be surprised by the simplicity of the code examples. Why
would they read this book? Because they realize that knowing code as a
second native language and being able to construct the architecture of
code is not enough, by far. The embedding of code in a process, driven by
creativity or business interests, is where the challenges lie. As a technical
expert, you will find the last three chapters most interesting and can use it
as a lens to scan the other parts of the book.
8
Chapter 1 Introduction
9
Chapter 1 Introduction
10
Chapter 1 Introduction
1.3.3. Getting Ready
This book contains a lot of examples, and they are written in code (“source
code”). Most examples can be used directly, and the resulting visual output
is shown close to the source code.
CODE EXAMPLES
All source code listed in this book is written in the open source
software Processing. Processing itself is available from https://
processing.org, and we recommend that you install it on your computer
to get the most out of this book. Processing is a medium for understanding
11
Chapter 1 Introduction
the structure and logic of code. We will explain this shortly. The code
examples are available online from our Processing library.2 Throughout
the book we call these examples also Processing sketches, which is a
common way to refer to code files in the Processing community. Although
it might be tempting to just download the examples and play with them,
we recommend typing them yourself (at least some of them). This way,
you will pick up the programming style much faster and allow your muscle
memory to support your learning. And if you are lucky, you will make a few
small mistakes that give you surprising results.
Finally, we will address you, the reader, informally. Think of this book
as a conversation in your favorite café over coffee, and your laptop is right
in front of you. Feel free to pause the conversation and dive into a topic
on your own, or explore the code of the examples, and then resume to the
next page. Let’s begin.
2
The Processing library can be found here: https://codingart-book.com/
library. You can install it using the Processing library manager.
12
CHAPTER 2
Idea to Visuals
In this first part of the book, we will go through four process steps and
show for each step how coding becomes a meaningful part of our creative
process. In step 1, idea to visuals, we take a bottom-up approach and
start directly with visuals and code. Our entry point to this approach is
to use code directly from the ideation stage of the creative process. More
specifically, instead of making mood boards, sketching, writing, searching
the web, or talking to experts, we suggest that you just start the Processing
application and give it a spin. First, we look at how we can express our
ideas using Processing and a few lines of code. Yes, we start really simple.
2.1. Visual Elements
For many artists, even if visual elements in their work are coded, the
standards for effectiveness in their work are still based on either cognitive
or aesthetic goals [12, 18, 20]. When we analyze any drawings, paintings,
sculptures, or designs, it is similar – we examine and decompose them
to see how they are put together to create the overall effect of the work.
Lines, colors, shapes, scale, form, and textures are the general fundamental
components of aesthetics and cognition for both art and design and for
coding art as well.
Processing can draw a wide range of forms that result from variation
and combination of simple shapes. When you take an example from the
Processing reference, try to change the numbers in the example to explore
how the shape changes and responds to different numbers.
© Mathias Funk and Yu Zhang 2024 13
M. Funk and Y. Zhang, Coding Art, Design Thinking,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-9780-3_2
Chapter 2 Idea to Visuals
The first two examples show that you can hit play in Processing as
often as you want and see how your work is evolving over time. Sometimes,
it is good to look at the results, just after changing a single value. By moving
fast between the code and the canvas, you will also learn faster and get a
better understanding of how the code influences the drawing of shapes
and how you can control precisely what is drawn on the canvas. At the
same time, by going through two detailed examples, we want to give you a
feeling for how helpful the Processing reference pages are. These pages are
available online and as part of your Processing application, and they, given
an overview of all functions, explain how they work and how exactly you
can use them. When browsing the reference, you might find interesting
new features that come in handy for your next project.
We recommend having a browser window open with the Processing
reference web page, so you can quickly jump into an explanation without
losing momentum in creating with Processing. First shapes coming up, do
you have Processing started up and ready?
2.1.1. Shapes
Every visual element in Processing follows one of two patterns: (1) first
specifying position, then size, and then shape or (2) specifying the points
on which the shape is drawn. We will come back to this in a few pages. By
carefully looking through these examples about simple visual elements,
you will understand the similarities in the code for ellipse and rectangle
and also the similarities for line, point, curve, polygon, and triangle.
Let’s start with a simple example based on the “ellipse” shape.
Open Processing, and type in the following three lines of code to draw a
simple circle.
14
Chapter 2 Idea to Visuals
15
Chapter 2 Idea to Visuals
This is also known as the RGB color mode. Here, we just use the RGB
values of black color (0, 0, 0). If we would increase the three values from
0 to 120 each, we would see a gray color, and if we turn them all up to 255,
the resulting color is white.
If we look at the last line of the code example, the first two numbers, 56
and 46, give us the location of the element. When positioning an element
on the digital canvas, the first number always refers to the horizontal
position or x coordinate. The second number refers to the vertical position
16
Chapter 2 Idea to Visuals
In this example, we first set the size of the canvas with the size
function. The first number is the width and the second number the height
of the digital canvas (Figure 2-1). In this case, both width and height of
the canvas are 600. We will use the width and height later in the example,
when drawing the ellipse. Another new thing in this example is the
background color of the digital canvas, which is defined according to RGB
(208, 170, 208) color using the background function. In addition to just
defining stroke color, we also define the width of the stroke (strokeWeight)
and the RGB color that is used to fill the drawn elements. In this example,
17
Chapter 2 Idea to Visuals
the position of the ellipse, that is, the x and y coordinates, is located in
the center of the digital canvas. We achieve this by replacing the first two
numbers by the width and height of the canvas, each divided by 2. When
we divide the width by 2, we effectively get the horizontal middle point, so
300. The same works for the height: we divide it by 2 and get the vertical
middle point at 300. Now, we can use these two new values to position the
ellipse and draw it in size 320 by 320 pixels.
In the following part of this section, we will look at the visual elements
in general and quickly show the code example of using such elements in
Processing environment.
2.1.2. Shaping Up in Processing
The line as a visual element is really everywhere in art and design.
Processing draws lines as a path between two points on the digital canvas.
18
Chapter 2 Idea to Visuals
? Think about this Can you guess what this triangle will look like?
Try it out in Processing to see if you are right.
DRAW A TRIANGLE
19
Chapter 2 Idea to Visuals
Processing offers more shapes that are just defined by points, for example,
quad (four points) or even complex polygons that are freely defined by a list of
multiple points. You can check the Processing reference how to use them.
We have seen the shape ellipse in Processing that was defined not by
different points, but by giving a position and then the size of the shape. The
ellipse function allows to draw circles and ellipses. Another shape is the
rect function that allows to draw squares and rectangles on the canvas.
DRAW A RECTANGLE
We can draw the same rectangle with rounded corners by adding a fifth
value to the rect function: the corner radius.
In this example, the top-left corner of the rectangle is in position (21, 22),
because Processing positions visual elements by default with their top-left
corner. Processing can interpret the position of a shape in different ways.
There is the CORNER mode that takes the position as the top-left corner,
and there is the CENTER mode that takes the position as the center of the
shape. Both can be useful in different situations. Let’s see how it works for
drawing rectangles.
20
Chapter 2 Idea to Visuals
21
Chapter 2 Idea to Visuals
// lightgray
fill(180, 180, 180);
// same lightgray
fill(180);
// solid purple
fill(180, 0, 180);
// 50% transparent purple (255 * 0.5 = 128)
fill(180, 0, 180, 128);
22
Chapter 2 Idea to Visuals
23
Chapter 2 Idea to Visuals
If we look closely in this example (and also the image), we see that
the same colors are used over and over. Instead of typing the same three
numbers for the respective colors again and again (and potentially making
mistakes), we can also define the colors before and just reuse them.
24
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
Fac-simile autograph manuscript by Halévy in possession of the
Paris Opera Library.
Halévy, despite all his industry and the fame he enjoyed through
his greatest successes, made no lasting impression on the music of
his day. Even “La Juive,” notwithstanding its power and its
brilliancy, found no imitators, and “L’Eclair” still stands alone, the
only example in its genre. It is sad that an artist should have labored
so long and so well, should have been a thorough master of his art,
and yet have fallen almost into obscurity thirty years after his death.
A careful examination of some of his more ambitious operas shows
that he was, in some respects, slightly in advance of his time,
especially in his tendency to avoid purely rhythmical airs in favor of
what is now called “Endless Melody,” but there is no likelihood that
the future will revive his works. It was his misfortune that
Meyerbeer’s star rose so early after the appearance of “La Juive,” and
that Halévy was drawn into the vortex that the rage for the composer
of “Les Huguenots” made. If he had followed the example of the
latter, had written music to none but good librettos, economized his
talents instead of wasting them in a reckless ambition to produce
music; if he had also adhered firmly to his own individual originality
instead of permitting himself to be unreasonably influenced by the
success of another, his operas might have had a stronger claim than
they have on the favorable consideration of posterity. When Halévy
wrote “La Juive,” the time was ripe for a great revolution in French
grand opera, and he just escaped becoming an epoch-maker at his
art. Meyerbeer appeared at that moment, and to him fell the honor
that was just within Halévy’s grasp. Whether the latter would have
seized it if his rival’s career had been delayed, it is hard to say, for his
lack of discrimination in the choice of opera books was already deep-
seated. Saint Beuve says of him: “‘La Juive,’ ‘Guido,’ ‘La Reine de
Chypre,’ ‘Charles VI,’ are true lyric tragedies on which are the seal of
beauties that time cannot obliterate. Some works, that appeal more
readily to the tastes of the masses, have been dowered with greater
popularity, but the decision of those who know is the only one that
appeals to a conscientious artist, and of this, Halévy received an
ample share. We think we are not mistaken in saying that as musical
education becomes more widespread, the popularity of Halévy will
grow.” This, however, is doubtful, and it is more than probable that
Halévy himself felt that he had not wholly accomplished his mission,
for Saint Beuve, who knew him well, also says, “It is strange that this
estimable man, always full of work, should sometimes have nursed a
secret sorrow. What it was, not even his most cherished and trusted
friends ever knew. He never complained.” Who shall say that this
secret sorrow, so silently guarded, was not born of a sense of failure,
or at least, of self-disappointment! It is not improbable that toward
the close of his busy art-life he saw, with prophetic eye, the fate that
was to attend the greater part of what he had composed; that he had
written for his own time and not for the future. Already he has
become little more than a name to nearly all, except students of
musical history. The works on which his fame chiefly rests are
seldom performed, and the others, admirable as many of them are,
have gone into oblivion, and in all probability, never to see the light
again. That he was a master in his art, is unquestionable, but it would
seem also that he was lacking in that highest quality of genius that
confers immortality on its possessor.
HECTOR BERLIOZ
More than a score of years have passed since Berlioz died, in Paris,
that city which was the object of his youthful dreams, the scene of his
bitter struggles and his sublime defeats. It was in the midst of those
Parisians, who had accorded him little more than mockery and
scorn, that he had wished to die, weighed down by sadness and
discouragement, supported by a few intimate friends and rare
disciples. Moreover, did he not foresee that sad end when writing the
following lines which subsequent events proved only too true? “It
was about that time of my academic life that I experienced again the
attack of a cruel malady (moral, nervous, imaginary, whatever you
like) which I will call sickness of isolation, and which will kill me
some day.... This is not spleen, though it leads to that later on; it is
the boiling away, the evaporation of the heart, the senses, the brain,
the nervous fluid. Spleen is the congelation of all that, it is the block
of ice.” Therefore death was for him a blessed release. For some years
before, there remained of Hector Berlioz nothing but an earthly
frame, an inert and suffering body; the moral being was crushed. The
fall of The Trojans was the rudest possible shock to that nature so
well tempered to receive it; hitherto the proud artist had returned
blow for blow; never had a defeat, however grave, completely
overthrown him. For the first time, in witnessing the downfall of the
work of his predilection, the athlete had faltered. He had laid down
his arms and thenceforth, weary of life and of the struggle, had
contented himself with the hollow diversions which the capital
offered him, “preoccupied solely with material interests, inattentive
and indifferent to that which impassions poets and artists, having a
morbid taste for scandal and mockery, laughing with a dry and
mirthless laugh when this strange taste is gratified.” A certain
heartache, a vague suffering of the soul, vain regrets, preyed upon
him at least as much as bodily ills; his shade alone wandered among
us, dumb, taciturn, isolated, and one beautiful morning in the month
of March it vanished.
Berlioz’s militant career may be divided into two distinct periods;
that in which he struggles for position, and which lasts from his
arrival in Paris until after Romeo and Juliet and the Funeral and
Triumphal Symphony, in 1842; that in which, tired of struggling
without profit though not without glory, he starts off to establish his
reputation outside the frontier, and to return afterwards to Paris,
victorious and triumphant; this lasts until his death. So soon as he
achieved a success abroad, great or small, “Be sure that Paris knows
it!” was the cry to his friends. And Paris, being informed of it, had
forgotten it instantly. It was during the intervals between these tours,
when he came back to France to see if his foreign successes had given
him a better standing in the eyes of his countrymen, that his last
principal works were produced: The Damnation of Faust, The
Childhood of Christ, The Te Deum and Beatrice and Benedict, finally
The Trojans.
It was towards the end of 1821 that Berlioz came to Paris,
ostensibly to study medicine, but with a secret longing to devote
himself to music. He was then nearly eighteen years of age, being
born at La Côte Saint-André (Isère), Dec. 11, 1803, and had already
received some lessons in music from the poor stranded artists at La
Côte. We are indebted to Berlioz himself for the names of these
artists, which were Imbert and Dorant.
On arriving at Paris, where his father, a simple health officer, but a
devotee to the sciences and to medicine, had allowed him to come on
the express condition that he should follow exactly the course of the
Faculty, he set to work as best he could to carry out this program. But
one evening he goes to the Opera to hear Salieri’s Danaïdes:
immediately music regains possession of his soul, and he spends all
his spare time in the library of the Conservatoire, studying the scores
of Gluck’s operas; there he meets a pupil of Lesueur who introduces
him to that master, and he attaches himself with much affection to
the author of the Bardes, who admits him to his class. At length he
informs his family of his settled determination to devote himself to
music, and he has performed at Saint-Roch a mass which he burns
almost immediately after, saving only the Resurrexit which obtains
grace in his sight, at least for a time. He then took part in the
preparatory concours for the prize of Rome, and was not even judged
worthy to be a competitor. Immediately summoned home by his
parents, who had no faith in his “pretended irresistible vocation,” he
arrived there so sad, so crushed, so misanthropic, that his father,
uneasy about him, permitted him to return to try once more his
fortune in Paris. He came back for the winter of 1826, having nothing
to live on but a small allowance from his family, on which he was
obliged to economize in order to pay back, little by little, a loan which
a friend had made him for the execution of his mass. His existence at
this time, which was shared by another student, his friend
Carbonnel, was a very miserable one, their meals consisting on
certain days of vegetables and dried fruits. He gave lessons in
solfeggio at a franc a lesson, and even applied for the position of
chorus singer at the Théâtre des Nouveautés. But artistic pleasures
counterbalanced the material privations, and his heart danced for joy
whenever he could go to the Opéra or to the Odéon and hear some
masterpiece by Spontini, Gluck or Weber; his fourth god, Beethoven,
was not revealed to him till two years later, when Habeneck founded
the Société des concerts du Conservatoire for the dissemination of
the works of that prodigious genius. He continued however in the
classes of Lesueur and Reicha, so that he was able to pass the
preliminary examination for the concours of 1828. The subject given
out by the board of examiners was a scene from Orpheus torn to
pieces by Bacchantes, and Berlioz’s music was declared by the judges
as impossible to be played. His only response was to prepare for its
performance at the concert to be given at the Conservatoire, the
superintendent of the Beaux-Arts, M. de Larochefoucauld, to whom
he had been recommended, having placed that hall at his disposal,
notwithstanding the violent protestations of the director, Cherubini.
But chance favored the self-love of the members of the Institute, for
Berlioz was obliged to give up his plan, on account of an
indisposition of the singer Alexis Dupont.
It would have been strange indeed, if Berlioz, with his ardent
imagination and brain always on fire, had allowed the romantic
movement to pass by without attaching himself to it with all the fury
and passion which he threw into everything. He soon became one of
the leaders of the new school, poor enough in musicians, counting
only himself and Monpau, whereas it abounded in writers and
artists. Like all his comrades in romanticism, even exceeding them
all, Berlioz was an enthusiastic and constant visitor at the Odéon,
where some of Shakespeare’s plays were then being given by a
company of English tragedians. Here he received a double blow;
from Shakespeare who floored him, as he said, and from Miss
Smithson who intoxicated him. It was to attract the attention of the
beautiful tragedienne that he organized, with his overtures to
Waverley and Francs-Juges and his cantata of la Mort d’Orphée, a
concert which she never heard anything about. It was also this idea
of reaching her through the medium of music which inspired him to
write his Fantastic Symphony, in which he put himself in the scene
with his beloved, and which, in fact, was to end by gaining him Miss
Smithson’s heart.
As these first attempts of Berlioz are little known, it is well to
specify them, if for no other reason than because one may find in
these forgotten pieces the plan of certain pages of the Damnation of
Faust and the Childhood of Christ. His overtures to Waverley and to
the Francs-Juges were performed for the first time at the concert
which he gave at the Conservatoire, in honor of Miss Smithson, May
26, 1828; on this occasion he also had played the Resurrexit from his
first mass, in place of The Death of Orpheus, which could not be
given owing to the illness of Alexis Dupont, a march of the Magi
going to visit the manger, and a grand scene on the Greek
Revolution. Finally, on the 1st of November, 1829, he had his two
overtures repeated, together with his Resurrexit under a new title,
The Last Judgment, and a new work entitled Chorus of Sylphs, the
plan of which is as follows: “Mephistopheles, in order to excite in
Faust’s soul the love of pleasure, assembles the sprites of the air and
bids them sing. After a prelude on their magic instruments, they
describe an enchanted country, the inhabitants of which are
intoxicated with perpetual delights. Gradually the charm operates,
the voices of the Sylphs die away and Faust, fallen asleep, remains
plunged in delicious dreams.” Everybody knows to-day what this
adorable bit has become.
In the meantime Berlioz obtained the “Prix de Rome” in July,
1830, after having tried for it four times in vain. He set out at once
for Rome, first giving, however, a farewell concert at which was
played his cantata of Sardanapalus and the Fantastic Symphony,
aimed at Miss Smithson whom Berlioz execrated because of her
ignorant indifference, and who, moreover, had not the slightest
suspicion of his mad passion and frantic hatred. The young
composer departed quite proud of his success and also of the sharp
response of Cherubini who said, when asked if he was going to hear
the new production of Berlioz, “I do not need to go to find out how
things should not be done.” He stayed in Italy nearly two years, in
order to conform to the regulations of the Academy, but it was time
wasted for him from an artistic point of view. With his just and
profound distaste for Italian music, he was in no condition to be
benefited by it. The only comfort he took was in fleeing to the
country, where he strolled with his new friend Mendelssohn; but this
companionship proved uncongenial and was short-lived. He
shortened his sojourn in Italy as much as possible, and as soon as the
director Horace Vernet gave him leave, he returned to Paris, taking
with him an overture to King Lear and the monodrama of Lelio or
the Return to Life, a series of old pieces worked over, which
completed the Fantastic Symphony. This work he could have done
just as well in Paris as in Rome; indeed he would probably have
accomplished more by remaining in Paris, instead of strolling about
the country near Rome playing on his guitar and frittering away his
time.
MISS SMITHSON.
NICOLO PAGANINI.
The year 1842 was an important date in Berlioz’s career. From that
time his life was a divided one. Misunderstood in his own country,
disheartened by his unsuccessful attempts to win the heart of the
great public, inconsolable for the failure of Benvenuto which closed
to him forever the doors of the Academy of Music, he resolved to
undertake an artistic tour through Europe, and began with Belgium
in the latter part of the year 1842. He met with rather more success
there than in France, though he was still the subject of heated
discussion. He took with him a decidedly mediocre singer,
Mademoiselle Martin Recio, who had made a failure at the Opéra,
and had managed to attach herself to him. He married her later, soon
after the death of Miss Smithson, from whom he had been separated;
but he was no happier in his second marriage than in his first; his
first wife drank, his second made unjustifiable pretensions as a
singer, which always exasperated him. After this little excursion to
Belgium, Berlioz determined to try his fortune in Germany, where
already some of his works had found their way; from this time
onward, his life was nothing more than a series of journeys through
France and foreign countries. His first grand tour was through
northern Germany. At Leipsic he saw Mendelssohn, whom he met on
the best of terms, forgetting all about their youthful quarrels; at
Dresden he inspired an equal devotion on the part of Richard
Wagner, who received him as a brother and treated him as a master;
at Berlin he was no less warmly welcomed by Meyerbeer, who
recruited the necessary artists for him and enabled him to direct a
part of his Requiem.
On his return to Paris he organized, first, a monster festival at the
Exposition of the Products of Industry, in August, 1844, then four
grand concerts at the Circus of the Champs Elysées, early in 1845;
but these gigantic concerts which it had always been his aim to
direct, brought him no profit. Not discouraged by this, however, he
gave grand concerts at Marseilles and at Lyons, the modest success
of which was due partly to curiosity, partly to surprise. After that he
went to Austria, Bohemia and Hungary; this tour was scarcely
finished when he rushed off to Lille to organize a grand festival there
on the occasion of the inauguration of the Northern railroad. Finally
in the summer of 1846 he returned to Paris, and after having given a
magnificent performance of his Requiem in the Saint Eustache
church, he decided to bring before the public his most important
work, The Damnation of Faust. The first performance took place on
December 6, before a small audience. The solos were sung by Roger,
Hermann, Leon, Henri, and Madame Duflôt-Maillard, who had no
better comprehension of the music than the public. The second
performance was given on Sunday the 20th, before an equally small
house, with a tenor who had to omit the Invocation to Nature. This
convinced Berlioz that he was still far from having conquered his
own country. He departed for Russia, deeply wounded by the
indifference of his countrymen.
Some of his Paris friends had clubbed together to furnish him the
means to go to St. Petersburg, whence he had received some brilliant
offers. He achieved the greatest success there, with musicians as well
as with the public, and the fact of his having formerly befriended
Glinka at Paris had its effect in enlisting sympathies for him in
Russia. On his way back he stopped at Berlin, where the Damnation
of Faust was given with little enough appreciation, but where he
received recognition from the sovereign and the princess of Prussia.
When he got back again to Paris, crowned with laurels, and with
money enough to settle all the debts incurred by the performance of
the Damnation of Faust at the Opéra Comique, he worked hard to
get the appointment at the Opéra of Duponchel and Roqueplan, who
were talking of an immediate revival of Benvenuto Cellini, of
mounting la Nonne sanglante, etc. Berlioz succeeded in getting them
nominated directors, through the aid of the Bertins, but they no
sooner had the official notice in their pockets than they utterly
ignored Berlioz. The latter understood that he was holding a restraint
upon them, and since, as he said, he was accustomed to this sort of
proceedings, he took himself off to London in order to rid them of his
troublesome presence. The affair of the Drury Lane concerts,
unwisely entered into with the eccentric conductor Julien,
terminated in bankruptcy, and the Revolution which followed in
1848 would have left Berlioz without a sou had not Victor Hugo and
Louis Blanc obtained for the sworn disciple of the romantic school
the humble post of librarian at the Conservatoire.
In August, 1848, Berlioz experienced one of the keenest sorrows of
his life in the loss of his father. He went to Grenoble to attend his
father’s funeral, and in his Mémoires he gives a most touching
account of the sad visit. It was about this time that his little Chœur
de Bergers was given under the pseudonym of Pierce Ducré, at the
concerts of the Philharmonic Society, Saint Cecilia hall, Chaussée
d’Antin. In 1852 his Benvenuto was given with great success at
Weimar under the fervent direction of Liszt, but the next year the
same opera utterly failed in London, where the Italians, said Berlioz,
conspired to ruin it. By “Italians” Berlioz meant the orchestral
conductor Costa and his party. Berlioz had accepted the preceding
year the leadership of the New Philharmonic, and had made by his
success, and attacks, a bitter enemy of the leader of the old
Philharmonic Society.
HECTOR BERLIOZ.
After the Empire had been restored in France, Berlioz would have
liked to see reëstablished in his own favor the high position which his
master Lesueur had occupied under the first Empire; but all that he
obtained was the privilege of performing a Te Deum, which he was
holding in reserve for the coronation of the new sovereign, and it was
Auber who was appointed master of music of the Imperial Chapel. In
December, 1854, his sacred trilogy of the Childhood of Christ,
completed and remodelled, was given with great success, and if it
was performed but twice, it was only because Berlioz,—he had taken
great care to announce it in advance,—was on the point of departing
for Gotha, Weimar, and Brussels, where there was great eagerness to
hear this new work. He returned to Paris the following March, and
on the evening of April 30, 1855, the day preceding the Universal
Exposition, he gave in Saint Eustache church the first performance of
his grand Te Deum for three choruses, orchestra and organ.
Afterwards when it became a question of engraving it, Berlioz was
able to see how greatly he was admired in foreign lands, for the first
subscribers were the kings of Hanover, Saxony, Prussia, the emperor
of Russia, the king of Belgium and the queen of England. The
following year he published a final and much enlarged edition of his
excellent Treatise on Modern Instrumentation and Orchestration,
originally brought out in 1844; he dedicated this work to the king of
Prussia. On the 21st of June, 1856, after four tours de scrutin, he was
nominated member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, replacing
Adolphe Adam, who had refused to vote for him two years before and
had helped to form the majority in favor of Clapisson. The following
years were spent by Berlioz in organizing concerts at Weimar and in
England, and above all in the composition of the great work on which
he built his supreme hope of success in France, his tragedy of Les
Troyens. Since 1856 he had been invited every year to Baden by
Bénazet, contractor for the gaming tables, to organize grand concerts
for the benefit of the visitors. Thus when the king of Baden, as
Bénazet was called, concluded to build a new entertainment hall, it
occurred to him at once that it would be a fine idea to get Berlioz to
write something for its inauguration, and the latter, from the first
mention of the subject, felt a reawakening of the desire which had
been haunting him for thirty years, to write a comic opera, at once
sentimental and gay, on certain scenes arranged by himself after
Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing. He acquitted
himself of this agreeable task by fits and starts; the performance of
the work at Baden took place three days sooner than he hoped, and
the success was great enough with that cosmopolitan audience, in
which the French predominated, to find an immediate echo at Paris.
The following year Mesdames Viardot and Vendenheuvel-Duprez
sang the delicious nocturne which closes the first act. For an instant
Berlioz indulged in the hope that they were going to play his bit of
comedy at the Opéra Comique, and in this fond hope he wrote two
more things and had them engraved; but he was soon obliged to
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