What medium did Georgia O'Keeffe use for her 1919 work Blue and Green Music?

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Georgia O'Keeffe used oil on canvas for Blue and Green Music. Painted in 1919, the work is an abstract composition built from sweeping, interlocking areas of blue and green.

The title connects the painting to O'Keeffe's interest in translating the sensation of music into visual form. Rather than depicting an identifiable object, the work relies on rhythm, color, and curving movement. This approach reflects her early engagement with abstraction and her belief that art could communicate feeling without literal representation.

Blue and Green Music is sometimes grouped too narrowly with O'Keeffe's later flower paintings, but it belongs to an earlier period in which she explored nonrepresentational shapes. The medium also matters: oil paint on canvas differs from the charcoal drawings and watercolors she made during other stages of her career.

Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Sept. 2026

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