Literature: Lene Olesen: “Schwalbe”, Copenhagen, 1994, ill. p. 12, mentioned p.p. 11–12. Exhibited: Kunstnernes Efterårsudstilling, Copenhagen, presumably 1952 (label on the reverse).

In her book, Lene Olesen writes about the connection between music and art in the work of Ole Schwalbe during the early 1950s in general and in this painting in particular: “the new musical tendencies also included notation, where the usual music notation with five staff lines was substituted with curves or points, for instance, which indicated the approximate level of pitch of the instrument. Abstract graphics were also part of the style, which the performer was expected to interpret in accordance with the performer’s own imagination. Together with Uffe Harder, among others, Schwalbe created operas that could be played via triangles and new ways of music notation. It is in this context we should place another of Schwalbe's works from the period around 1952. The painting is larger than the others and was held entirely in black and white, with seven vertical blocks of alternating black and white interrupted by horizontal stripes. The blocks plus the intervals create timing and rhythm, and the rhythm creates a connection between the different parts of the painting. With the contemporary avant-garde music in mind, the painting can be interpreted as an octave, where the seven notes or scales are depicted as vertical blocks and the horizontal stripes as the black and white keys of a piano, with groups of two and three dominating. The painting was created through a compositional method, which Schwalbe would use many times over during the following years. An initial composition of black and white stripes has been cut into pieces and the transverse bands are then reassembled into a new union”.