In his orchestra paintings and in the violin series produced from 1945 to 1949, Raoul Dufy gave music a true visual expression through his homages to great composers. Born into a family of music lovers, Raoul Dufy produced his first depiction of the violin in 1909 with Homage to Mozart. While it appeared as a decorative feature in the studio series of the 1930s, as with Studio at L'Impasse de Guelma (Paris, Musée National d'Art Moderne), the violin became an independent motif in 1948.
Dufy translated into colour the musical world of his favourite composers, Mozart, Bach and Debussy. In the last decade of his career he pushed the intensity of a colour to its maximum and extended it to the composition as a whole. The deep aquamarine blue that is most associated with Dufy is invading most of the space. The swirling pattern of the wallpaper above the white violin evokes a musical score, delivering Dufy’s own interpretation of the imaginary world of colour and music.

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