On se sert des couleurs, mais on peint avec le sentiment...
Black and Violet, Vladimir Kandisky, 1923.
Synaesthesia (also spelt synæsthesia, synesthesia); from the Greek (syn-) “union,” and (aesthesis) “sensation,” has been used to describe various phenomena. A person who experiences synaesthesia is called a synaesthete. Normally the term synaesthesia is used to indicate a condition in which the stimulation of one sensory modality gives rise to an experience in another modality. In an auditory synaesthete, for example, an auditory experience may give rise to an experience in the visual modality.
Synaesthetes often experience correspondences between the shades of color, tones of sounds, and intensities of tastes that provoke alternate sensations. For instance, a synaesthete may see a more intense red as the pitch of a sound gets higher, or a smoother surface might make one taste a sweeter taste. These experiences are not metaphorical or merely associations; rather, they are involuntary and are consistent throughout life, although some young synaesthetes seem to lose their ability by or during adulthood. Depressants tend to increase the depth of the perception.
Synaesthesia can even occur when one of the senses no longer functions properly, e.g., a person who can see colors when words are spoken can still see the colors if he becomes blind in later life. This phenomenon is known as "martian colors." The term originated from a case of a synaesthete who was born partially color blind, but saw certain 'alien' colors in his synaesthetic perceptions that he never saw (was incapable of seeing) in the 'real world.'
The most common forms of synaesthesia involve color being assigned to letters, numbers, days of the week or (especially for musicians) musical keys.
Synaesthetes often experience correspondences between the shades of color, tones of sounds, and intensities of tastes that provoke alternate sensations. For instance, a synaesthete may see a more intense red as the pitch of a sound gets higher, or a smoother surface might make one taste a sweeter taste. These experiences are not metaphorical or merely associations; rather, they are involuntary and are consistent throughout life, although some young synaesthetes seem to lose their ability by or during adulthood. Depressants tend to increase the depth of the perception.
Synaesthesia can even occur when one of the senses no longer functions properly, e.g., a person who can see colors when words are spoken can still see the colors if he becomes blind in later life. This phenomenon is known as "martian colors." The term originated from a case of a synaesthete who was born partially color blind, but saw certain 'alien' colors in his synaesthetic perceptions that he never saw (was incapable of seeing) in the 'real world.'
The most common forms of synaesthesia involve color being assigned to letters, numbers, days of the week or (especially for musicians) musical keys.
Synaesthesia is an often-used poetic device. In a familiar example, Andrew Marvell characterized the fruitful and serene atmosphere of the garden as
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade
( —"The Garden")
Likewise, Nick Carraway, the narrator of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, recounts "yellow cocktail music" playing at one of Gatsby's parties.
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade
( —"The Garden")
Likewise, Nick Carraway, the narrator of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, recounts "yellow cocktail music" playing at one of Gatsby's parties.
Synaesthesia is a neurological condition, which occurs naturally in many individuals, but is also a common effect of some hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD or mescaline. Synaesthesia as a drug effect played a role in the popular song "Lake Shore Drive" by Aliotta-Haynes-Jeremiah:
Sometimes you can smell the green
When your mind is feeling fine
( —Aliotta, Haynes and Jeremiah)
Synaesthesia has influenced many artists in various fields, including poets Charles-Pierre Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud (specifically his poem Voyelles), and an ersatz synaesthesia has sometimes been overused since as a shortcut to "modernity."
Pink Floyd's once lead singer/songwriter Syd Barrett was known to experience synaethesia, which inspired many of the band's lyrics. Another musician, and a fan of Barrett's, is Robyn Hitchcock, who is also a synaesthete. Hitchcock uses particular chords depending on their "colours," describing some chords as green and others as yellow, blue, or red.
Composer Alexander Scriabin, in his orchestral work, Prometheus: Poem of Fire (1910), included a part for a "clavier à lumières." This instrument was played like the piano, but produced colored light instead of sound. Scriabin did not experience the physiological condition of synaesthesia. The color system he described and which he used in pieces such as Prometheus, unlike most systems and synaesthetic experience, lines up with the circle of fifths, indicating that it was a thought-out system; it was also influenced by his theosophic readings and based on Sir Isaac Newton's Optics. Many other artists have used fabricated synesthetic systems, such as the Italian futurist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and the Russian abstract-painting pioneer Wassily Kandinsky.
Amy Beach was a synesthete, seeing different colors for different keys, as well as possessing absolute pitch. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was reputed to be a synesthete as well as György Ligeti. Olivier Messiaen was a true synesthete; he discussed his condition to a great extent in his writings, going so far as to describe in detail the exact colorations evoked by particular chords. Jean Sibelius was also synesthetic, claiming even in his early childhood that G major was 'green' and being able to convert images he saw in nature directly into music. Contemporary postminimal composer Michael Torke is a synesthete who perceives colors for various time units. French drummer Manu Katché and world-renowned oboist Jennifer Paull are both synesthetes, Katche seeing various images with music, and Paull seeing an expanded unexplainable spectrum to various sounds, the sensation of the oboe compelling her to take it up.
Franz Liszt, when conducting, confused the musicians by describing timbres or sonorities in chromatic terms.Ludwig van Beethoven considered B minor to be "the black key," and Franz Schubert viewed E minor as like "a maiden robed in white and with a rose-red bow on her breast." In such cases of long-dead people, it is difficult to tell whether they were describing their synesthesia or using figures of speech such as those from Marvell and Fitzgerald above.
In his autobiography, writer Vladimir Nabokov described his synaesthetic experiences. The American physicist Richard Feynman admitted to seeing the algebraic symbols of Bessel functions in color.
Baudelaire, dans son sonnet Correspondances, confère à cette figure de style une portée métaphysique. Il y décèle la preuve de l’unité de la Création et de l’analogie secrète entre toutes les choses. Le poète, mieux que tout autre, sait percer la signification de cette « forêt de symboles » qu’est le monde sensible et en percevoir la « ténébreuse et profonde unité ».
« Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent
Dans une ténébreuse et profonde unité. »
Rimbaud reprend la théorie baudelairienne à son compte dans sa lettre à Demeny du 15 mai 1871. Le poète « devra faire sentir, palper, écouter ses inventions ». Il revient sur cette idée lorsqu’il entreprend de faire le bilan de sa trajectoire poétique en 1873, dans Alchimie du Verbe : « Je me flattai d’inventer un verbe poétique accessible, un jour ou l’autre, à tous les sens ». Il met en pratique ce programme en associant généralement dans ses descriptions des sensations d’ordre différents :
« Une matinée couverte, en juillet. Un goût de cendres vole dans l’air ; — une odeur de bois suant dans l’âtre — les fleurs rouies, — le saccage des promenades, — la bruine des canaux par les champs, — pourquoi pas déjà les joujoux et l’encens ? » (Illuminations, Phrases).
Mais cette accumulation de notations visuelles, olfactives (« odeur de bois », « encens »), gustatives (« goût de cendres »), tactiles (la « bruine »), auditives (on entend « suer » les bûches), ne relève pas exactement de la synesthésie. Pour qu’il y ait synesthésie, il ne suffit pas qu’il y ait juxtaposition de sensations de différents ordres mais association intime de l’une à l’autre, expression de l’une par l’autre, simultanéité de l’une et de l’autre dans la perception. Rimbaud en propose de nombreux exemples, avec un sens de l’insolite qui développe bien l’idée baudelairienne d’une exploration poétique de l’Inconnu :
« Il sonne une cloche de feu rose dans les nuages » (Illuminations, Phrases)
« La lune brûle et hurle » (Illuminations, Villes I)
« Des cercles de musique sourde » (Illuminations, Being Beauteous)
« parfums pourpres du soleil des pôles » (Illuminations, Métropolitain)
Dans des exemples de ce type, une sensation en fait naître une autre qui en précise ou en renforce le sens. Dans « Les fleurs de rêve tintent, éclatent, éclairent » (Illuminations, Enfance) l’idée de beauté est exprimée conjointement par la luminosité éclatante et le tintement cristallin de l’objet évoqué en rêve. Dans « Un envol de pigeons écarlates tonne autour de ma pensée » (Illuminations, Vies I), la violence auditive de la perception (« tonne ») est renforcée par une vision en rouge (« écarlates »), peu naturelle et inattendue.
Grammaticalement, l’effet synesthésique est obtenu tantôt par le choix de l’adjectif (« ses bras, noirs et lourds et frais surtout, d’herbe » Mémoire) , tantôt par le choix du verbe (« rouler sur l’aboi des dogues » Illuminations, Nocturne vulgaire, « des prés de flammes bondissent » Illuminations, Mystique ; « des moissons de fleurs […] mugissent » Illuminations, Villes I), tantôt par le complément déterminatif du nom (« virement des gouffres » Illuminations, Barbare ; « cercles de musique » Illuminations, Being Beauteous).
Sometimes you can smell the green
When your mind is feeling fine
( —Aliotta, Haynes and Jeremiah)
Synaesthesia has influenced many artists in various fields, including poets Charles-Pierre Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud (specifically his poem Voyelles), and an ersatz synaesthesia has sometimes been overused since as a shortcut to "modernity."
Pink Floyd's once lead singer/songwriter Syd Barrett was known to experience synaethesia, which inspired many of the band's lyrics. Another musician, and a fan of Barrett's, is Robyn Hitchcock, who is also a synaesthete. Hitchcock uses particular chords depending on their "colours," describing some chords as green and others as yellow, blue, or red.
Composer Alexander Scriabin, in his orchestral work, Prometheus: Poem of Fire (1910), included a part for a "clavier à lumières." This instrument was played like the piano, but produced colored light instead of sound. Scriabin did not experience the physiological condition of synaesthesia. The color system he described and which he used in pieces such as Prometheus, unlike most systems and synaesthetic experience, lines up with the circle of fifths, indicating that it was a thought-out system; it was also influenced by his theosophic readings and based on Sir Isaac Newton's Optics. Many other artists have used fabricated synesthetic systems, such as the Italian futurist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and the Russian abstract-painting pioneer Wassily Kandinsky.
Amy Beach was a synesthete, seeing different colors for different keys, as well as possessing absolute pitch. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was reputed to be a synesthete as well as György Ligeti. Olivier Messiaen was a true synesthete; he discussed his condition to a great extent in his writings, going so far as to describe in detail the exact colorations evoked by particular chords. Jean Sibelius was also synesthetic, claiming even in his early childhood that G major was 'green' and being able to convert images he saw in nature directly into music. Contemporary postminimal composer Michael Torke is a synesthete who perceives colors for various time units. French drummer Manu Katché and world-renowned oboist Jennifer Paull are both synesthetes, Katche seeing various images with music, and Paull seeing an expanded unexplainable spectrum to various sounds, the sensation of the oboe compelling her to take it up.
Franz Liszt, when conducting, confused the musicians by describing timbres or sonorities in chromatic terms.Ludwig van Beethoven considered B minor to be "the black key," and Franz Schubert viewed E minor as like "a maiden robed in white and with a rose-red bow on her breast." In such cases of long-dead people, it is difficult to tell whether they were describing their synesthesia or using figures of speech such as those from Marvell and Fitzgerald above.
In his autobiography, writer Vladimir Nabokov described his synaesthetic experiences. The American physicist Richard Feynman admitted to seeing the algebraic symbols of Bessel functions in color.
Baudelaire, dans son sonnet Correspondances, confère à cette figure de style une portée métaphysique. Il y décèle la preuve de l’unité de la Création et de l’analogie secrète entre toutes les choses. Le poète, mieux que tout autre, sait percer la signification de cette « forêt de symboles » qu’est le monde sensible et en percevoir la « ténébreuse et profonde unité ».
« Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent
Dans une ténébreuse et profonde unité. »
Rimbaud reprend la théorie baudelairienne à son compte dans sa lettre à Demeny du 15 mai 1871. Le poète « devra faire sentir, palper, écouter ses inventions ». Il revient sur cette idée lorsqu’il entreprend de faire le bilan de sa trajectoire poétique en 1873, dans Alchimie du Verbe : « Je me flattai d’inventer un verbe poétique accessible, un jour ou l’autre, à tous les sens ». Il met en pratique ce programme en associant généralement dans ses descriptions des sensations d’ordre différents :
« Une matinée couverte, en juillet. Un goût de cendres vole dans l’air ; — une odeur de bois suant dans l’âtre — les fleurs rouies, — le saccage des promenades, — la bruine des canaux par les champs, — pourquoi pas déjà les joujoux et l’encens ? » (Illuminations, Phrases).
Mais cette accumulation de notations visuelles, olfactives (« odeur de bois », « encens »), gustatives (« goût de cendres »), tactiles (la « bruine »), auditives (on entend « suer » les bûches), ne relève pas exactement de la synesthésie. Pour qu’il y ait synesthésie, il ne suffit pas qu’il y ait juxtaposition de sensations de différents ordres mais association intime de l’une à l’autre, expression de l’une par l’autre, simultanéité de l’une et de l’autre dans la perception. Rimbaud en propose de nombreux exemples, avec un sens de l’insolite qui développe bien l’idée baudelairienne d’une exploration poétique de l’Inconnu :
« Il sonne une cloche de feu rose dans les nuages » (Illuminations, Phrases)
« La lune brûle et hurle » (Illuminations, Villes I)
« Des cercles de musique sourde » (Illuminations, Being Beauteous)
« parfums pourpres du soleil des pôles » (Illuminations, Métropolitain)
Dans des exemples de ce type, une sensation en fait naître une autre qui en précise ou en renforce le sens. Dans « Les fleurs de rêve tintent, éclatent, éclairent » (Illuminations, Enfance) l’idée de beauté est exprimée conjointement par la luminosité éclatante et le tintement cristallin de l’objet évoqué en rêve. Dans « Un envol de pigeons écarlates tonne autour de ma pensée » (Illuminations, Vies I), la violence auditive de la perception (« tonne ») est renforcée par une vision en rouge (« écarlates »), peu naturelle et inattendue.
Grammaticalement, l’effet synesthésique est obtenu tantôt par le choix de l’adjectif (« ses bras, noirs et lourds et frais surtout, d’herbe » Mémoire) , tantôt par le choix du verbe (« rouler sur l’aboi des dogues » Illuminations, Nocturne vulgaire, « des prés de flammes bondissent » Illuminations, Mystique ; « des moissons de fleurs […] mugissent » Illuminations, Villes I), tantôt par le complément déterminatif du nom (« virement des gouffres » Illuminations, Barbare ; « cercles de musique » Illuminations, Being Beauteous).
publié par C.R. à
11:35 AM
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