Virginia Berresford

Painted in 1947, Baroque Music is an exuberant composition that celebrates Virginia Berresford’s passion for music. The Baroque period deeply influenced the artist, and she included Baroque composers Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel among her “greatest musical figures.” [1] Baroque Music held particular significance for Berresford, and in her autobiography, she reserved the painting for a special group of works entitled “Paintings not for sale.” [2]

Two years before Baroque Music was executed, Berresford recalled an evening when a friend performed Bach’s widely known “Toccata and Fugue in D minor” in a church setting. In Baroque Music, the center of the composition is dominated by a group of baroque instruments, including trombones, a French horn, a harp, violas, a drum, and a large organ. Bells hang suspended throughout the scene, while arched pillars evoking stained glass windows fill the night sky with kaleidoscopic luminosity. The repetition of these visual forms mirrors the repeating, interweaving melodies of Bach’s Fugue. The abstract color fields in Baroque Music represent a departure from the artist’s earlier work inspired by Purism: “…there was a point at which I wanted to break free,” Berresford later recalled, “so I broke loose with the palette knife, heavy impasto, ‘strong’ colors.” [3] The intensity of Berresford’s palette and application of paint in Baroque Music reflect the drama and theatricality of the musical period that inspired it.

[1] Virginia Berresford, Virginia's Journal: An Autobiography of an Artist, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts: The Glen Publishing Company, 1989, 199.

[2] Virginia Berresford, Virginia's Journal: An Autobiography of an Artist, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts: The Glen Publishing Company, 1989, 184.

[3] Virginia Berresford, Virginia's Journal: An Autobiography of an Artist, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts: The Glen Publishing Company, 1989, 180.