It is very difficult to express time through paintings since they are a fixed, flat form of art. Yet, many artists have taken up the challenge.

Hans Richter (1888-1976), a Dadaist painter, was one of them. At first he tried to express development with time by painting abstract forms on a long, narrow screen. Eventually, he came to take abstract images with a film camera, and hit upon the idea of making the pictures move. Rhythmus 21 (1921) was the outcome of such attempts. The history of abstract cinema begins here. As the title, Rhythmus 21, indicates, Richter tried to create a form of music. He used animation as a way to make pictures develop with time like music, although this was actually a silent film.

Later on, Oskar Fischinger (1900-67) started producing abstract cinema. He succeeded in synchronizing moving abstract forms with the sound track. This was when drawings and music became unified.

Takashi Ishida's Die Kunst der Fuge is an animation based on J. S. Bach's Die Kunst der Fuge (The Art of Fugue). Like Richter, Ishida started out as a painter and went on to produce abstract cinema from his desire for the musical. And like Fischinger, he has totally integrated the depicted forms with music. Ishida is obviously a direct descendent of Richter and Fischinger.

However, Ishida's purpose goes beyond the synchronization of art and music. He gives the complicated structure of Bach's scores an original interpretation, and tries to visualize the music in detail. Die Kunst der Fuge was Bach's ultimate pursuit of polyphony in his last years. It is also an incomplete work full of mysteries; even the instruments are not indicated. Ishida's Die Kunst der Fuge is an experiment to perform Bach's score with drawings instead of with musical instruments. He also attempted to complete the unfinished work through his new interpretation. Bach's music is characterized by polyphony in which several melodies conflict and compete to make new developments. Similarly, Ishida makes the abstract motifs conflict initiating various evolvements. It is not only the progression of the musical score that is depicted. The nature of fugue itself is visualized. This is because, as in Bach's work, a creative system for producing pluralistic relations has been formed. Moreover, the counter-position of the drawings collides with the musical counterpoint. At this point, the visual and audible are united as they conflict, and a polyphonic relation is established between them. In this way, Ishida has achieved a higher pluralism through the creation of diverse conflicts.

Tomohiro Nishimura, art critic