Gustave Bourgogne - Oeuvres musicalistes - 1936
While listening to the great bells and the chimes of the Cathedral in Malines ( Belgium) in 1928, Gustave Bourgogne began to think seriously of the links between music and colours but it wasn’t until 1931, at an exhibition at the Galerie Bernheim Jeune that he joined forces with three other painters Valensi (1883-1960), Stracquadaini (1881-1955), and Blanc-Gatty (1890-1960) to found the artistes musicalistes group. In 1932, Bourgogne and Valensi started the l’Association des Artistes Musicalistes for whom musicalist painting was a fusion between painting and music where sound waves and light waves became synonymous.
He participated in the three first Salons Musicalistes: in 1932, he showed a suite of paintings on Beethoven’s symphonies and in 1935, a series of portraits of musicians. He had many one-man shows and also designed textiles. He showed at the Salon des Indépendants until 1963
Gustave Bourgogne stayed true to a certain poetic figurative style based on elements taken from nature as opposed to his fellow musicalists who were purely abstract.