Duomo Project / Beginning Marble Inlay

Duomo Project Work in Progress by Matthew Holden Bates

In my last post I said that I was going to finish the San Matteo niche, but as it happens, I didn’t go in that direction. I spend a lot of time staring at the canvas, usually until it talks to me, then I get to work. This week I decided to get more of the canvas filled in, to give it more body. It is such a large canvas that it really needs to get filled in. There are so many patterns on the Duomo, it is hard to take them all in. Especially the marble inlay which I have compared to crop circle designs in a previous post about another part of the Duomo, the Campanile di Giotto. This time, as I was studying the facade, getting ready to paint it, the patterns in the inlay reminded me of something else. I remember seeing a video about how sounds, or frequencies, can create patterns on a vibrating plate. The science is called Cymatics, and it is fascinating. Here is a short video illustrating the effect:

Duomo Project / Inlay detail, work in progress

I have been trying to reverse engineer the patterns on the Duomo into a frequency, but have not figured out how to do that. If you know of a way to recreate the patterns of the inlay, into a sound, please leave me a comment below explaining how it can be done because I really want to hear what the patterns sound like! Cymatics is a really cool way to combine art and music, and I would really like to pursue this much further. Maybe someday we will be able to hear what the Duomo is singing through its design.

Duomo Project work in progress

I thought it would be a good idea to include this photo now to remind everyone what I am working towards. This is a series of posts all related to the making of this painting. It is happening in real time, and it is the first time that I have ever published the day by day progress of on of my paintings. Well, at least in the public. Whenever I make a commission, I tend to send progress reports to the client which is very similar to this series. If you are new to my channel and would like to see the beginning of this series here are the links:

Day One
Day Two
Phase 1 Complete
First Week of Painting
Further Work San Matteo
San Matteo Detail Work

Thanks for visiting my blog, I really appreciate your help by upvoting and resteeming my content. It helps get the word out about my painting and hopefully will help my career as an artist as well. If you have any questions or would like to just say hi I will be excited to respond to your comments, and once again, if you know anything about Cymatics, I will be thrilled to hear about it.😀