Four Part Synchromy, Number 7 1915

Editor: This is Morgan Russell’s "Four Part Synchromy, Number 7," painted in 1915 using oil paint. Looking at this canvas split into quadrants, with its overlapping geometric forms, it evokes something musical to me… maybe something like looking through a kaleidoscope, with distinct sections almost like movements in a symphony. What symbolic language is at play here? Curator: The title "Synchromy" is your clue! Russell was consciously trying to translate musical harmonies into visual experience, seeking a correspondence between colour and sound. Notice how each quadrant isn’t just a random arrangement; instead, colour chords resonate within each section, a kind of visual echo across the painting. What do you feel that repetition suggests? Editor: It gives it rhythm, like a musical motif. But are there recognizable symbols in those geometric shapes, or is it purely about the colors? Curator: Synchromism, as a movement, moved away from direct representation, preferring to explore universal principles of harmony and rhythm through colour. Think of these forms less as objects, and more as emotional cues coded by colour: the grounding blue, the fiery red… these invoke powerful emotional responses we've developed over millennia, long before Russell picked up a brush. Does understanding that change how you perceive the piece? Editor: It does. The colours are doing the work of storytelling. The shapes don’t matter as much as the feeling those shapes create in combination. Each section becomes a specific memory. Curator: Precisely! Each “movement” a different shade, a different resonance, all speaking to the shared cultural reservoir. Editor: It’s almost like reading abstract feelings encoded in geometric forms and colour, passed down through generations! I’ll never look at abstraction the same way.