Catherine Parker (1926-2012)

Since the late 1990s, Catherine Parker painted images that were inspired by or in “response to” music by notable composers. Having been a cellist herself, as well as a painter, informed her special vision. Parker often responded to the music of Olivier Messiaen, a 20th-century French composer known for his spirituality, love of nature, and rare synesthetic perceptions in which he would simultaneously hear musical chords as specific colors. Curator Nancy Weekly has researched Charles Burchfield’s synesthetic sensitivities and believes that since synesthesia can be a hereditary gift, it is possible that his daughter, Catherine, may have had an exceptional perception of sound within a visual dimension. Catherine’s appreciation of Messiaen’s music may have a greater depth and complexity that we can imagine. This painting is one of eight inspired by Olivier Messiaen’s magical Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time) (1941). It is a response to the fifth movement “Louange À L’Éternité De Jésus.”