![]() ![]() When his piano teacher realized he was associating notes with colors, he took it as a sign of insanity and sent him packing. In a letter to his brother Theo, van Gogh revealed, “Some artists have a nervous hand at drawing, which gives their technique something of the sound peculiar to a violin.” In van Gogh’s case though, his synesthesia may have cost him the chance to be a pianist. Many art historians believe that van Gogh was a synesthete. The artist is the hand that purposely sets the soul vibrating by means of this or that key.” Vincent van Gogh The soul is the piano with its many strings. Kandinsky was also a talented cellist and he associated each musical note with an exact hue. Moving into the world of visual art, so many of the abstract works by Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky show a distinct intertwining of music and color. High glacial spears, white kings, trembling Queen-Anne’s lace īased on that, it’s pretty hard to argue that Rimbaud was a high-level (some might even say black belt) synesthete. ![]() Pits of night E, candor of sand and pavilions, Some day I will open your silent pregnancies:Ī, black belt, hairy with bursting flies,īumbling and buzzing over stinking cruelties. It’s absolutely apparent in his poem entitled Vowels:īlack A, white E, red I, green U, blue O-vowels, Like Billy Joel, poet Rimbaud was also a grapheme-color synesthete – long before anyone knew what that was. Some scents are cool as children’s flesh is cool, / Sweet as are oboes, green as meadowlands”. But maybe his following writing illustrates his synesthesia a little more clearly: “Perfumes and sounds and colors correspond. He subscribed to the popular theory at the time that every element of existence corresponds to another in a spiritual sense of interconnectedness. For Baudelaire, there was a distinct connection between sensation and emotion. Of course, as we mentioned above, synesthesia extends across all the arts. As for the consonants? He sees hard sounds such as t, p, or s as more red in hue. Certain lyrics he writes have to follow a “vowel color.” Words with strong vowel endings are a vivid blue or green. Joel’s synesthesia extends to his lyrics as well (a.k.a. A more vivid color like orange, red, or gold is most often associated with a strong melodic and rhythmic pattern. Obviously similar chord progressions follow similar light patterns, but try to imagine the best kaleidoscope ever.” Billy JoelĪ fellow musician, Joel sees soft and slow rhythms in terms of blue and green. I’ve never seen the same light creature in my life. She explained it in her book Piece by Piece like this, “The song appears as light filament once I’ve cracked it … I’ve never seen a duplicated song structure. And you’re in good company.īelow are seven other creative souls who have or had synesthesia: Tori Amosįor musician Amos, sounds produce different images of lights. Sound weird? If you said no, then you might have synesthesia. He is able to determine when something is in key based on it matching the color he sees in his mind. As he says, “people with synesthesia, we don’t really notice until someone brings it up, and then someone else says, ‘Well, no, I don’t see colors when I hear music.’ And that’s when you realize something’s different.”įor Williams, he relies on his synesthesia when making music. One of today’s most well-known synesthetes is Pharrell Williams. Researchers can actually look at the activity in the cortical areas of a synesthete’s brain when he or she sees the word and compare it to a non-synesthete’s brain scan. But today, thanks to neuroimaging and the ability to connect somebody’s sense of the reality of the world to their brain’s architecture, an artist no longer has to merely claim that Thursday is magenta. Up until 1980, many were skeptical of synesthesia. Rather, it’s a neurological phenomenon that artists deem as a tremendously valuable tool. This can cause a synesthete so see Tuesday as orange or experience numbers as sounds.Īn estimated four percent of the population is synesthetic – and the vast majority of them are artists – be they writers, visual artists, actors, musicians, etc. Some scientists think it’s the result of crossed wires in the brain and that the neurons and synapses that are typically contained within one sensory system cross to another. In fact, there are at least 73 different types of synesthesia.Īnd those who excel in creativity most often experience it. Thus, a synesthete may see a sound, taste a shape, or smell a color. That’s because synesthesia is when one sensory experience involuntarily prompts another. In fact, if you’re a synesthete (one who has synesthesia), the word might sound purple. ![]() And it’s not something you can avoid with a mask. Walk down the hall of any arts academy high school and you’re bound to run into more than a handful of students who have synesthesia.
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