The reduction of the motif to elementary geometric forms such as circle and rect- angle – this visual strategy has changed the way of seeing in the 20th century from cu- bism to logo design. But what if those basic signs that has its own aesthetic sphere: the notes of music?
Johannes Kreidler, a trained composer, recognized the polyaesthetics of musical notation and developed it into a visual lan- guage of its own.
»All of a sudden I no longer just read notes, but also saw them – I saw them twice: once as symbols of music, but at the same time as independent pictorial building blocks. With sheet music I can not only write down music, but also represent objects, events, words and thoughts.«
Kreidler designs his pictures like the score of a piece of music. The title in the top cen- ter, below the notes. For a veritable piece of music, however, there are usually not enough notes, especially since essential in- formation such as metre and tempo, dyna- mics, clef or instrumentation indications are often missing – these compositions cannot be played. Rather, they convey the aura of sound and let the viewer imagine music to it. At the same time, other, non-musical re- ferences arise.
This constellation of aesthetics, optically / linguistically / musically, draws the view- er through minimalist concentration into a wit and immediate beauty appear from the notations.