JFM/Motion in Music—Motion in Painting: The Use of Music in the Films of Oskar Fischinger

Although the life of German abstract filmmaker Oskar Fischinger (1900–1967) has been reconstructed and his films analyzed, little interest has been given to the relationship between his films and the music. This study asks several questions: What kind of music did Fischinger use? How did he use music? What were his principles in synchronizing music with forms and colors? How did he work with the score? What other ways of visualizing music did he think about? What conclusions can we draw from answering these questions? His films Komposition in Blau (1935), An Optical Poem (1937) and Motion Painting No. 1 (1947) are discussed in detail.