The Critical Review. A draft outline
Finding your way in Art is the most difficult part of artistic practice. And this process of search is hidden in the personality of the artist.
I think we are coming to this world with certain knowledge and background.
Innatism is a philosophical and epistemological doctrine that holds that the mind is born with ideas/knowledge and that therefore the mind is not a "blank slate" at birth. Evidence for innatism is being found by neuroscientists. (Wikipedia, At: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innatism#:~:text=Innatism (Accessed 20.05.2021)
If each of us born with a prior background then it should be easy to find your way?! We just need to listen to ourselves better or to search. This investigation can lead to amazing results. Just don't stop - do it.
Material emotion. Portrait of a person, 2021, paint, spray colours, paper on hardboard, 117 х 155 х 10 cm.
For many years I thought it was okay to see glowing halos around people, or colourful extravaganzas during headache. Many acute and important events in my life were accompanied by flashes of colour. But it was not only nice events. Heightened perception of events and their emotional colouring prevented me from formulating my thoughts normally or as it was customary for others. For some, I was overly poetic and said strange things about the colour of their aura. Early detection of such phenomena in a child would allow helping them to correct their behaviour and not injure their psyche.
Lemon, 2021, paint, spray colours, paper on canvas, 106 x 105 x 10 cm.
Driven by inner colour, but not realizing it, I started to paint. Later due to my artistic practice, I learned about synaesthesia and my understanding of colour. What drove me? Just the desire to work and do something, or did my inner state and sense of colour predetermine my path?
Synaesthesia - a condition in which someone experiences things through their senses in an unusual way, for example by experiencing colour as a sound, or a number as a position in space. (Cambridge Dictionary At: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/synaesthesia (Accessed 07.04.2021)
Scientists say about the innate experience of synaesthesia. When a child receives his first experience, he must first see all the colours, give them definitions, assigns them to people, objects, and so on. A small person fills himself with experience and develops thinking skills. In the future, any of his ideas or thoughts, knowledge, perception with previous experience will be intertwined with the innate phenomenon of synaesthesia – it is called ideasthesia. Thus, it turns out that the body's reaction to events will differ among people depending on congenital characteristics, geographic, cultural and social experience.
Brain scans of synesthetes have finally removed the doubts of the skeptics. They provide proof of the neurological existence of synesthesia. Experiments that compared the brain activity of synesthetes with that of nonsynesthetes reveal that there are neurological differences in their responses to the same stimulus. (Malina, 2007, p.5)
Now that it is precisely established that this is not an invention of creative people, but really a fact that people experience, we can move on. But where to move, and why?
How the absence or presence of synaesthesia affects a person. For example, if we have damage to one of the five senses, such as vision, it will cause problems for the person. But what if synaesthesia is absent?
In my youth, I was engaged in Chinese martial arts - wushu. And at one of the classes, the master told me how to see the aura around a person and on the first attempt, I saw it. The master helped me develop the skill. If synaesthesia is congenital and depends on our experience, then is it possible to develop it but were to develop, for what?
Freshness, 2021, paint, spray colours, paper on hardboard, 105 х 110 х 10 cm.
Some synaesthetes cannot help but connect their lives with art, as evidenced by their work. How did famous synesthetes see this world, and what visualization tools did they use?
There are just some examples of famous synaesthetes as going deeper into this phenomenon, I found more and more information and facts about such people.
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov saw coloured letters and identified them with materials.
“On top of all this I present a fine case of colored hearing. Perhaps “hearing” is not quite accurate, since the color sensation seems to be produced by the very act of my orally forming a given letter while I imagine its outline. The long a of the English alphabet (and it is this alphabet I have in mind farther on unless otherwise stated) has for me the tint of weathered wood, but a French a evokes polished ebony. This black group also includes hard g (vulcanized rubber) and r (a sooty rag being ripped). Oatmeal n, noodle-limp l, and the ivory-backed hand mirror of o take care of the whites. I am puzzled by my French on which I see as the brimming tension-surface of alcohol in a small glass. Passing on to the blue group, there is steely x, thundercloud z, and huckleberry k. … n the green group, there are alder-leaf f, the unripe apple of p, and pistachio t. Dull green, combined somehow with violet, is the best I can do for w. The yellows comprise various e’s and i’s, creamy d, bright-golden y, and u, whose alphabetical value I can express only by “brassy with an olive sheen.” In the brown group, there are the rich rubbery tone of soft g, paler j, and the drab shoelace of h. Finally, among the reds, b has the tone called burnt sienna by painters, m is a fold of pink flannel…” (Nabokov, 1989, p.30)
Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh heard music in colour.
“Many art historians believe that Vincent van Gogh had a form of synesthesia called chromesthesia—an experience of the senses where the person associates sounds with colors. This is evident in various letters that Van Gogh wrote to his brother—in one he reveals, “Some artists have a nervous hand at drawing, which gives their technique something of the sound peculiar to a violin.”
Van Gogh also took up piano in 1885, but struggled to grasp the instrument. He declared that the experience of playing was overwhelming because each note evoked a different color. Unfortunately for Van Gogh, the teacher took this as a sign of insanity and forced him to leave.” (Emma Taggart on March 1, 2019 online At: https://mymodernmet.com/synesthesia-art/ (Accessed 01.06.2021))
Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Kandinsky also sensed the colours and forms of music.
“For him colour and music were inextricably linked as he sought to evoke sound through vision. When young, he is said to have heard a ‘peculiar hissing sound’ when mixing different coloured paints in his paintbox. Kandinsky described recognising his synaesthesia while watching Wagner’s opera, Lohengrin: “I saw all my colours in spirit, before my eyes. Wild almost crazy lines were sketched in front of me”. This sudden awareness caused Kandinsky to abandon his law career and study painting at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. Later he said: “the sound of colours is so definite that it would be hard to find anyone who would express bright yellow with bass notes or dark lake with treble”.” (Synaesthesia. POSTED ON MAY 19, 2020 BY MICHAEL SCHWARZ online At: https://beguidedbyart.com/synaesthesia/ (Accessed 01.06.2021))
Joan Mitchell
Joan Mitchell saw sounds, people, letters, and emotional events in colour.
“In the interim, he had left her for another woman, and she had attempted to come to grips with this loss in the raw, lyrical, elegiac oil La Vie en Rose, its four panels like the movements of a symphony in blue-rose, bruised gray, blue, shiny black, and rose-pink.” (Patricia Albers 2008 online At: http://www.patriciaalbers.net/writings#:~:text=Joan%20Mitchell%20had%20several%20forms,in%20La%20Vie%20en%20Rose (Accessed 01.06.2021))
Joan Mitchell, La Vie en Rose, 1979. Oil on canvas, 110 3/8 x 268 1/4 inches (280.353 x 681.355 cm). © Estate of Joan Mitchell. [Painting] At: https://www.joanmitchellfoundation.org/joan-mitchell/artwork/0689-la-vie-en-rose (Accessed 01.06.2021)
It is interesting to note here that when something similar happened to me - there was a break with a person, I did this
“Joan Mitchell had several forms of synesthesia, including personality-color synesthesia, in which other people induce colors...” (Patricia Albers 2008 online At: http://www.patriciaalbers.net/writings#:~:text=Joan%20Mitchell%20had%20several%20forms,in%20La%20Vie%20en%20Rose (Accessed 01.06.2021))
David Hockney
David Hockney identifies colour with music.
“He sees synesthetic colors to musical stimuli. In general, this does not show up in his painting or photography artwork too much. However, it is a common underlying principle in his construction of stage sets for various ballets and operas, where he bases the background colors and lighting upon his own seen colors while listening to the music of the theater piece he is working on.” (Sean A. Day, Ph.D. 2017 online At: http://www.daysyn.com/synesthete-artists.html#anchor_81 (Accessed 01.06.2021))
Many musicians see music in colour - this helps them harmonize the whole piece.
Lady Gaga, (Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta)
"When I write songs I hear melodies and I hear lyrics, but I also see colour. I see sound like a, like a wall of colour. And, like for example, Poker Face is a deep amber colour."
Alessia Cara
“[Synesthesia] really helps me to know if a song kind of ties together and if every aspect of a song ties together, because if a certain drum sound sounds purple and the song feels purple than I know that they kind of match. It just really helps me figure out like the whole package of a song.”
What does it mean for me?
I contacted the Head of The Russian Synaesthesia Community Anton Dorso, and we had a conversation about this phenomenon. Now that I understood the types of synesthesia and studied myself better, I can say with certainty that from an early age I was addicted to colour, and this definitely became the reason for the change in my profession after 10 years in business.
Ultimate silence, 2021, paint, spray colours, paper on canvas, 127 x 103 x 11 cm.
When I first started working with oil paints, I cried with joy. It was the most beautiful moment in my life at that time. Now I see that mixing colours is like reliving something from the past and even seeing the future. Paints for me are a thick cream for the soul. Just as hand cream softens the skin, I feel energized by the colours of the oil paint or other paint in my hands.
I really dislike the uncomplicated, simple, non-sexy, tasteless colours of some artists. I can even physically feel bad. My heartbeat rises, there is a kind of clouding in my head, and I urgently need to get away from such works.
Synesthesia. Demographic aspects of synesthesia. online At: http://www.daysyn.com/Types-of-Syn.html (Accessed 01.06.2021)
Touch, 2021, paint, spray colours, paper on canvas, 262 x 211 x 10 (55 х 75 х 8, 105 х 156 х 10, 106 х 106 х 8, 35 х 35 х 7, 25 х 45 х 8) cm.
I can feel the colour inside my body, inside my head when I have a headache, for example, or during intercourse, or when something emotional is happening. For example, food can be coloured and textured in fabric, or scent of freshness or spring. Parting is always a riot of colours. Suffering is something emotionally black with red, purple. Around people and some objects, I see a luminous aura, and some people feel like colour when I hug them. When a person describes pain or talks about a part of the body that hurts, I have sensations of this place or this organ (not sure that it is possible, but I do feel it) in my body. I also have a collection of perfumes simply because I find some scents to be beautiful. They are voluminous and have a composition.
Basically, the colour that comes out in me is somehow voluminous and vibrating. For example, I feel that this colour is 2 minutes to the left and 3 hours to the right in size. And sometimes it is a colour funny in shape, voluminous ovals or intricate forms.
But here is right to think, about the mix of two terms I mentioned earlier: ideasthesia and synaesthesia. Is it possible now to separate what is the natural process of my brain's work as a reaction to emotion with colour, and what is the association and mixture of my ideas and experience with colour?
Cold, 2021, paint, spray colours, paper on hardboard, 140 x 80 x 15 cm.
My understanding of synaesthesia for art is a heightened sense of colour, shape, emotion, time, smell, taste, person, sound. It's like a dog's sense of smell - after all, a person does not feel everything that a dog feels, it seems to me that synaesthesia gives a much more complex perception. And doesn't matter if it is coming from the mix of my association and ideas or it is a game of my brain anyway I love it and it is my world.
On the one hand, synaesthesia opens a richer perception, and on the other, I now understand why it is so difficult for me to decide at least something. Because it is such a complex of emotions and sensations that sometimes it is not clear where to start and what is most important.
After all, the spread of such an approach through art will allow people to perceive the world deeper, or learn about events through a comprehensive assessment of colour, time, space, smell, taste, etc.
Energy, 2021, paint, spray colours, paper, cardboard, hardboard, 162 x 13 cm.
Bibliography and references
1. Association of the German Synaesthesia Society (DSG), Verein Deutsche Synästhesie-Gesellschaft e.V. (DSG) At: http://www.synaesthesie.org/de (Accessed 23.03.2021)
2. Sean A. Day, Ph.D. 2021 At: http://www.daysyn.com/index.html (Accessed 23.03.2021)
3. The Russian Synaesthesia Community’s site At: http://www.synaesthesia.ru/ (Accessed 23.03.2021)
4. Roger F. Malina, 2007 The Hidden Sense, Synesthesia in Art and Science. The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts. London, England
5. Vladimir Nabokov. 2008 Memory, Speak Russian. Translated from English by Sergei Ilyin. Владимир Набоков. 2008 Память, говори на русском. Перевод с английского Сергея Ильина.
6. Vladimir Nabokov. 1989 Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited. Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, INC. New York