Synesthesia in art
The phrase synesthesia in art has historically referred to a wide variety of artists' experiments that have explored the co-operation of the senses (e.g. seeing and hearing; the word synesthesia is from the Ancient Greek σύν (syn), "together," and αἴσθησις (aisthēsis), "sensation") in the genres of visual music, music visualization, audiovisual art, abstract film, and intermedia (Campen 2007, Jewanski & Sidler 2006, Moritz 2003, 1999, Berman 1999, Maur 1999, Gage 1994, 1999).
[1] Linda Anderson, according to NPR considered "one of the foremost living memory painters", creates with oil crayons on fine-grain sandpaper representations of the auditory-visual synaesthesia she experiences during severe migraine attacks.
One day, many years ago, I was having an acupuncture treatment and was lying flat on my back, on a futon, stuck full of needles.
The red began as a small dot of intense colour and grew quite large rather quickly, chasing much of the blackness away.
Within the creative process, I think of my synesthetic responses as vital messengers that arrive faster than thought to deliver one urgent message which I always heed: beauty is lurking.
First, the music gives me an optimistic, happy feeling and I perceive red, yellow, and orange colors in a great variety with little contrast.
[5]Anne Patterson, a New York-based artist with a background in theatrical set design, describes the genesis of her installation of 20 miles of silk ribbons suspended from the vaulted ceiling arches of San Francisco's Grace Cathedral, which was inspired by a cello performance of Bach: When listening to music, I see colors and shapes, either angular or circular, and get a sense of whether the piece is horizontal or vertical.
[6]Brandy Gale, a Santa Cruz, California-based Canadian painter and photographer "experiences an involuntary joining or crossing of any of her senses – hearing, vision, taste, touch, smell and movement.
Gale paints from life rather than from photographs and by exploring the sensory panorama of each locale attempts to capture, select, and transmit these personal experiences.
[12] There is power, joy, and physical challenge in painting outdoors alla prima, especially for a full spectrum synesthete like Brandy [Gale], whose visions from her 5 fully-crossed senses are transmitted to others through the polychromatic intensity of her plein air work.
[13]Perhaps the most famous work which might be thought to evoke synesthesia-like experiences in a non-synesthete audience is the 1940 Disney film Fantasia, although it is unknown if this was intentional or not.
Many of his paintings and stage pieces were based upon a set and established system of correspondences between colors and the timbres of specific musical instruments.
One of the questions that the classic philosophers asked was if color (chroia, what we now call timbre) of music was a physical quality that could be quantified (Campen 2007, Gage 1994, Ferwerda & Struycken 2001, Jewanski 1999).
The first known experiment to test correspondences between sound and color was conducted by the Milanese artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo at the end of the sixteenth century.
He consulted with a musician at the court of Rudolph II in Prague to create a new experiment that sought to show the colors that accompany music.
The problem of finding a mathematical system to explain the connection between music and color has both inspired and frustrated artists and scientists throughout the ages.
The British inventor Alexander Rimington, a professor in fine arts in London, documented the phrase ‘Colour-Organ’ for the first time in a patent application in 1893.
The Russian composer Alexander Scriabin was particularly interested in the psychological effects on the audience when they experienced sound and color simultaneously.
On the score of Prometheus, he wrote next to the instruments separate parts for the tastiere per luce, the color organ (Campen 2007, Galeyev 2001, Gleich 1963).
In the second half the nineteenth century, a tradition of musical paintings began to appear that influenced symbolist painters (Campen 2007, Van Uitert 1978).
Kandinsky's theory of synesthesia, as formulated in the booklet "Concerning the Spiritual in Art" (1910), helped to shape the ground for these experiments.
