FOCUS IS ON CREATIVITY, COLLECTING

How did the invention of little metal tubes for oil paint affect 19th-Century music? What constitutes an art collection, and how do you start one? Why are some paintings worth so much more than others, regardless of aesthetic value?

Such varying aspects of music and art will be discussed by two authorities who will be lecturing this week in Orange County.

University of Southern California music professor James Hanshumaker will begin a six-part lecture series tonight at 7:30 at Corona del Mar High School. Co-sponsored by the Newport Harbor Art Museum and the Orange County Philharmonic Society, the series will explore relationships among styles of art and music and the societies in which they were created.

And, Henry Hopkins, director of the Frederick R. Weisman Foundation of Art in Los Angeles, will lecture on “Developing a Collection” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Laguna Art Museum.

For Hanshumaker there’s no doubt that “the world around a composer shapes that composer’s work.

“Mozart, for instance, composed for a fickle audience that lived in and wanted a very decorated world,” Hanshumaker said recently. “His music is filled with attempts to capture the attention of that audience.”

Such relationships are the subject of Hanshumaker’s six-week lecture series, “The Composer’s World,” which concludes March 4.

Topics will range from the impact of technology to American songwriters Cole Porter, George Gershwin and Stephen Sondheim. Slide projections and compact disc recordings will accompany the talks.

For an example of the influence of technology, Hanshumaker will talk about the invention in the 19th Century of little metal tubes for containing paint.

“That made a tremendous impact,” he said. “It enabled artists to carry paint outside their studios for the first time and paint landscapes from life.

“German and Austrian artists began painting entire mountain ranges, and we find the same massive sense of construction in the symphonies of Mahler.

“Later, in the music of Debussy and in the paintings of Seurat, there is the reaction. Things seem almost to dissolve; there is the move away from the great romantic subjects, and the emphasis falls on little slices of life, nothing philosophical or dramatic.”

“My intention is for people to develop an empathy for the musical art of a period by seeing it in its historical, technological, sociological, political, economic context--that is, the life of the times,” he said.

Hanshumaker is aware that there are potential problems in his approach.

“There is usually a time lag between the visual arts and music,” he said. “So you can get into great trouble in looking for connections.

“Superficial characteristics are easy to find. But the artist is surrounded by a visual world and maintains some rapport with it.”

Hanshumaker said that his lectures are “a broad sweep of the finest in Western musical thought.”

“Nothing I will do will be an outright attempt to judge,” he said. “It will be an effort to account for phenomena: This is the world. How do we account for it?”

Still, Hanshumaker wants to advocate at least one position--admiration for native composers.

“Americans have a tendency not to feel the same sense of accomplishment and pride in music developed in this country that they reserve for music that has come out of Western Europe,” he said. “But I think it’s wonderful.”

Dates and subjects of Hanshumaker’s talks are as follows:

--Jan. 14: The World of Bach and Handel.

--Jan. 21: The World of Mozart.

--Feb. 4: Change and Innovation in the 19th Century.

--Feb. 11: Contrasts and Conflicts: The Worlds of Mahler and Debussy.

--Feb. 25: The 20th-Century Avant Garde.

--March 4: Music in the New World.

The price for the “Composer’s World” series is $30 for Newport Harbor Art Museum and Orange County Philharmonic Society members, $42 for others. Individual lectures are $6 for museum and Philharmonic Society members, $8 for general admission. For further information, call the museum’s education department at (714) 759-1122.

When it comes to establishing an art collection, Henry Hopkins, director of the Weisman Foundation of Art, says that many people are confused about what a collection actually is.

“A bunch of stuff is not a collection,” Hopkins, 58, explained in a recent phone interview.

“A true collector works out a purpose. He tries to make a perfect collection of one thing. He sorts and chooses; each object adds to the total, and the total becomes worth more than the sum of the individual parts,” Hopkins said.

Another problem that will be addressed by the man who was also director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for 13 years is that “far too many collectors collect what others collect.

“Everyone wants a Warhol, for instance,” he said. “That creates a false sense of aesthetic value and practical problems, too. Ultimately, most collections go to museums, but if all collectors are collecting the same kind of thing, the museum won’t want them.”

It would be better, Hopkins advises, to think in terms of “what will add an important facet to that institution, which is best for everybody.”

One thing Hopkins will not tell you is what to buy.

“One of the basic questions I’m usually asked is ‘Who are the hot artists?’ I refuse to answer that. You ow have to determine that for your own mind.

“For one thing, few people understand that even though collecting art has become a major phenomenon, there’s absolutely no guarantee that in the longer range of history, any of the art of the last 20 years will be significant.”

Hopkins advises the would-be buyer to study the field and “not just walk into a gallery and say, ‘I like that,’ and buy it and not know more about the art world than that.”

Hopkins recommends reading national art magazines, newspapers and criticism. “You can become reasonably secure within one area within a short time,” he said.

“Buy from your heart--but with intellectual backing to it.”

Fortunately, you don’t need to have a great deal of money to begin collecting, Hopkins said.

“Dealers are delighted with people that come to collect art, and every art dealer will be agreeable for you to make time payments. They’re interested not necessarily in people who have a lot of money but in those who will make a regular payment.”

Admission to Hopkins’ lecture is $7.50. For further information, call the museum at (714) 494-6531.