Silence  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Revision as of 07:45, 12 April 2014

Funeral March for the Obsequies of a Deaf Man (1884), a composition by Alphonse Allais. It consists of nine blank measures and predates comparable works by John Cage ("4′33″") by a considerable margin.

Five Shells on a Slab of Stone (1696) by Adriaen Coorte

Illustration: Laocoön and His Sons ("Clamores horrendos" detail), photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen

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Silence is a relative or total lack of sound. An environment with sound below 20 decibels is considered quiet or silent.

Gestures of silence

shh, gestures of silence

Placing the index finger in front of closed lips[1] is the most widely recognized gesture of silence. The gesture can be used to demand silence without raising one's own voice.

Visual representation of silence

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Silence

There is a hidden tradition in the painting of silence: Vermeer, Caspar David Friedrich, Chardin, Bonnard, Chirico and Morandi. That the genre is still popular is proved by the work of Erzsébet Vojnich.

• Painters of silence
• Sunshine and Silent Rooms

Paintings of silence

• Le Silence [2] by Odilon Redon (1840–1916)
• The Silence (Fuseli) [3]

In music

"It's Oh So Quiet" by Bjork, list of silent musical compositions

Music inherently depends on silence in some form or another to distinguish other periods of sound and allow dynamics, melodies and rhythms to have greater impact. For example, most music scores feature rests denoting periods of silence.

Some composers take the use of silence in music to an extreme. 4′33″ is an experimental musical work by avant-garde composer John Cage. Though first performed on the piano, the piece was composed for any instrument or instruments and is structured in three movements. The length of each movement is not fixed by the composer, but the total length of the combination of three movements is.

Socially

In Western cultures, it is sometimes difficult to interpret the meaning of a person who is silent (not speaking). It can mean anger, hostility, disinterest, or other emotions. Because of this, many in some Western cultures feel uneasy when one party is silent, and usually try their best to fill up the silence with small talk.

Dicta

• What can be said at all can be said clearly; and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence

See also

• 4′33″
• Background noise
• Code of silence
• Humming
• Monastic silence
• Omertà
• Pinter pause
• Retreat for the religious meaning of silence.
• Silent film
• Stillness
• Quiet
• Secrecy
• Vow of silence