Debussy, A Floating World That Also Welcomed Jazz And Pop

150 years after his birth, the French composer is more than ever a point of reference for many artists

"If we study Japanese art, we discover a man who is undoubtedly wise, philosophical, intelligent, who spends his time - doing what? Studying the distance between the earth and the moon? No! Studying Bismarck's policies? No! He studies... a simple blade of grass. But this blade of grass leads him to draw all plants, and then the seasons, and the great spectacle of landscapes, and finally animals, and human figures. Thus he spends his life, and life is too short to do everything".

Vincent Van Gogh wrote this to his brother Theo, trying to explain the unique nature of the Japanese art that had conquered him - the "Japonisme" that inflamed the imagination of artists at the end of the 19th century, after the Land of the Rising Sun had finally opened to the West in the middle of the century after centuries of isolation. One only needs to think of Van Gogh's self-portrait, one of many, in which however the great painter depicts himself with elongated Asian-style eyes and a Buddhist monk's habit against an aqua-green background, his tribute to the Zen monks whose peace he so much lacked in his spirit (the painting is in the Harvard museum and is worth, on its own, the flight to Boston). Or Monet's wife with the large red kimono waving a fan, "La Japonaise", more French than the world (National Gallery, Washington).

Etc. Etc.

I read the article in Corriere della Sera about Debussy and it pleased me for the simple fact that I am a Debussy enthusiast, and I consider it positive nonetheless that he is being discussed.

Of course, the article is perhaps a bit too popular/superficial: for me, it would have been more interesting to also address a more musicological discussion (perhaps including a brief technical mention of scales and modes), given also the importance one wants to give to the aforementioned influence on jazz music; an influence that is not explained in the slightest, except with a certain "affection" from eminent jazz musicians towards the French composer...