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A Brief History of Synesthesia in the Arts

In ancient China, one of the various schemes relating such matters as seasons of the year, body parts, facial features, and planets, contained the following:

Taste Color Tone Number Planet

sour green and blue jué 3 Jupiter

bitter red zhiv 5 Mars

sweet yellow go'ng 3 Saturn

sharp white sha'ng 2 Venus

salty black yú Mercury

(based upon Jewanski 1999: 70, which is based upon Wang 1984/1985)

An ancient Persian scheme provides the following correspondences between musical tones and colors:

B rose

A green

G bright blue

F black

E yellow

D violet

C blue-black

(based upon Jewanski 1999: 70, which is based upon Wellek 1927 )

Around the year 550 B.C., the Pythagorans offered mathematical equations for the musical scales, showing that musical notes could be seen as relationships between numbers. A musical scale, for example, could be divided into eight notes, an "octave" scale, which repeats its sequence as the musical notes proceeded higher or lower. To use a basic example, this could be the C-Major scale on the piano, consisting of just the white keys: C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C. This is also the basic "do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do".

Pythagoras

Plato

Around 370 B.C. or so, Plato wrote Timaeus, in which the soul of the world is described as having these same musical ratios. A cosmology was emerging in which the planets' radii (the planets' order actually varied, depending upon the author) were set with a ratio sequence of 1:2:3:4:8:9. Later, ratios would emerge with the following ratio sequence: Moon = 1; Venus = 2; Earth = 3; Mars = 4; Jupiter = 14; Saturn = 25. This sequence approximated the Greek diatonic musical scale's ratios, thus the planets were tied to music, and a concept of "the music of the spheres" was initiated.

Around 350 B.C., Aristotle wrote to maintain that the harmony of colors were like the harmony of sounds. This set the stage for a later equating of specific light and sound frequencies, as Aristotle's works were translated and incorporated into European sciences.

Aristotle

Aristotle, in his On Sense and the Sensible (350 B.C.), also established a correspondence between flavors and colors, as follows (see also Riccò 1999: 29; Jewanski 1999: 84):

Flavor

sweet

fat

tangy

sour

sharp

salty

bitter

Color

white

yellow

purple-red

violet

green

blue

black

Archytas

At about this same time, Archytas of Tarentus (c. 428 - 350 B.C.) introduced the "chromatic" scale to Greece. This was seen as a compliment to the two main scales: the diatonic (a whole-note or full-tone scale); and the enharmonic (quarter-tones).

In the latter half of the eleventh century, Rudolph of St Trond "sought to introduce a notational system which represented the modes (tropoi) of plainsong - which he mistakenly identified with the ancient Greek modes - by colours; thus the Dorian was to be written in red, the Phrygian in green, the Lydian in yellow and the Mixolydian in purple. This system, which was designed simply for clarity, found little echo even in the manuscripts of Rudolph's own work" (Gage 1993: 228).

Around 1492, Franchino Gaffurio was re-introducing colorized Greek modal music to Europe, with the following system: Dorian = "crystaline" color; Phrygian = orange; Lydian = red; and Mixolydian = an "undefined mixed color" (which is, admittedly, somewhat vague).

In 1517, a lute manuscript was produced which had note-duration notated via color: an 8th note = red; a 16th note = blue; a 32nd = yellow/green.

In 1550, Girolamo Cardanus (also known as Cardano) developed a system of corresponding colors with flavors and the planets:

white

yellow

red

(puniceus)

purple (purpureus)

green

blue

black

sweet

harsh/pungent

(austerus)

tart

sour

sharp

(acutus)

salty

bitter

Venus

Jupiter

Moon

Mercury

Sun

Mars

Saturn

By 1570, Cardanus had altered his system slightly, and now added correspondences to tone intervals:

Venus

Sun

Mercury

Jupiter

Mars

Saturn

Moon

sweet

pungent (acris)

sour

fatty (pinguis)

salty

astringent

tasteless

octave

major sixth

minor sixth

fifth

fourth

major third

minor third

Guiseppe Arcimboldo

Around 1590, the painter Guisppe Arcimboli created a system of colored fabrics, such that pointing to specific swaths would designate specific notes for musicians to play. An interesting aspect of Arcimboldo’s system is that the lowest notes are indicated by white and lighter colors, and higher notes are progressively darker.

Arcimboldo's musical color board reconstructed by D. Pavey

In 1618, Johannes Kepler's Harmonices mundi ("Harmonies of the World") was published. Here, each planet was not only given an individual basic note but was also actually given a sequence of musical notes based upon its movements -- not enough for a full "melody", really, but at least enough for a "motif".

Athanasius Kircher, around 1646, developed a system of correspondences between musical intervals and colors, as follows (see Jewanski 1999: 200-205):

octave

seventh

major sixth

minor sixth

augmented fifth

fifth

diminished fifth

fourth

major third

minor third

major wholetone

minor second

minor wholetone

green

blue-violet

fire red

red-violet

dark brown

gold

blue

brown-yellow

bright red

gold

black

white

grey

Kircher also developed a set of correspondences between voice types and colors (based upon Jewanski 1999: 215-216):

high, soft and broken

soft and quiet

deep and unclear

high and tense

first deep, then high

strong and deep

white

yellow

fire-red

scarlet

blue

black

Marin Cureau de la Chambre, in 1650, proposed a scheme of colored musical intervals based on Aristotle (see Jewanski 1999: 222-226):

double-octave

twelfth

eleventh

octave

fifth

fourth

base

black

purple

blue

green

red

yellow

white

In 1704, Sir Isaac Newton's treatise Optics was first published, which dealt, among other things, with the parallel between colors of the spectrum and notes of the musical scale. Newton mathematically but quite arbitrarily divided the visible light spectrum into seven colors. He then noted that the mathematical relationships of these seven colors was similar to those of the musical scale, with the following concordances:

violet = eighth (octave)

indigo = seventh

blue = major sixth

green = fifth

yellow = fourth

orange = minor third

red = tonic

In 1723, David Gottlob Diez produced a system corresponding colors, planets, and musical tones (see Jewanski 1999: 144-146):

black

grey

red

yellow

green

various colors

blue

water-blue/white

Saturn

Jupiter

Mars

Sun

Venus

Mercury

Moon

Earth

In 1739, Lorenz Christoph Mizler (1711-1778) developed his sceme for colored musical notes, in response to Newton:

violet

indigo

blue

green

yellow

orange

red

Note that this is seven colors, arranged as per the supposed "spectrum" (see Jewanski 1999: 466-468).

The French Jesuit monk Louis Bertrand Castel, the well-known mathematician and physicist, was a firm advocate of there being direct solid relationships between the seven colors and the seven units of the scale, as per Newton's Optics. Around 1742, Castel proposed the construction of a clavecin oculaire, a light-organ, as a new musical instrument which would simultaneously produce both sound and the "correct" associated color for each note.

Relationships between sounds and colors according to L.B. Castel:

(dark) violet

agate

violet

crimson

red

orange

golden yellow

yellow

olive green

green

pale green

blue

(see Jewanski 1999)

Johann Gottlob Krüger, in 1743, variated Newton's scheme, producing the following variation:

violet

purple

sky blue

green

sulfur yellow

golden yellow

red

Polycarp Poncelet, in 1755, combined musical tones with basic taste sensations, in the following scheme:

piquant

sharp, tangy

sweet-sour

bitter

sweet

without taste; boring

sour

The mathematician Leonhard Euler (1707-1783) developed the following system of correspondences between colors and musical notes around 1760:

violet

blue

green

yellow

orange

red

purple

Note the difference here between Euler's C = purple starting point and previous C = red starting points of Krüger, Mizler, and Newton. It should be noted, however, that Euler basically rejected the idea of a natural realationship between light and sound, and dismissed Castel's idea of a clavecin oculaire.

In 1789, Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of naturalist Charles Darwin, stated the following in his The Botanic Garden, Part II:

"Now as the pleasure we receive from the sensation of melodious notes [. . .] must arise from our hearing some proportions of sounds after others more easily, distinctly, or agreeably; and as there is a coincidence between the proportions of the primary colours, and the primary sounds, if they may be so called [. . .] the same laws must govern the sensations of both.

"In this circumstance therefor consists the sisterhood of Music and Painting: and hence they claim a right to borrow metaphors from each other, musicians to speak of the brilliancy of sounds, and the light and shape of a concerto; and Painters of the harmony of colours, and the tone of a picture. Thus it was not quite so absurd, as we imagine, when the blind man asked, if the colour scarlet was like the sound of a trumpet" (Darwin 1789/1991: 129; quoted in Jewanski 1999: 510).

Also in 1789, Louis-François-Henri Lefébure modified Castel's scheme of colored musical notes, changing it to the following:

violet

orange

yellow

indigo

red

green

blue

(see Jewanski 1999: 401-403)

In 1862, François Sudre died, leaving behind him the invention of Solresol, a "Universal Language" based upon seven musical pitches (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si -- with "middle C" set as "do). Sudre suggested that one system for encoding Solresol could employ fires or lanterns using the following sequence:

si = B

la = A

sol = G

fa = F

mi = E

re = D

do = C

violet

indigo

blue

green

yellow

orange

red

Note that this is basically identical with Mizler's (1739) system, itself based upon Newton's supposed seven colors of the spectrum.

In 1893, Bainbridge Bishop published regarding his scheme of correspondences for colored notes, which he deemed as being correct according to nature as displayed by rainbows (see Bishop 1893):

violet-red

violet

violet-blue

blue

green-blue

green

yellow-green

green-gold / yellow

yellow-orange

orange

orange-red

red

By this time, Bishop had already constructed at least three color organs, capable of playing both sound and corresponding light together or separately. Perhaps surprisingly, the three color organs were each destroyed in separate fires. The first color organ was exhibited in New York; it was this same organ which was later owned and displayed by P.T. Barnum at Barnum's house in Bridgeport (and subsequently ruined when the house burned down). The second was destroyed in a hotel fire at Lake George; the third, at during a fire at Bishop's own house.

In 1922, in Russia, Leon Theremin invented an "illumovox" to accompany his "etherphone" (theremin), which, "when connected to the etherphone, projected evolving hues of the spectrum in direct correspondence to pitch changes on the instrument" (Glinsky 2000: 31-32); these correspondences were apparently just straightforward, with the lowest pitches as dark red, then successively higher pitches moving through orange, yellow, green, and so on, up to the highest pitches being almost ultraviolet. Theremin later added gadgets to also add scents and tactile sensations to the instrument's music (see Galeyev 1992).

Thissite last updated: 5.July.2011