The Sound of Color
In the eyes and ears of some artists, sounds have color. And in reverse, colors have sounds. A few people may actually see the sound of laughter, or hear a field of flowers. It’s called Synesthesia—the brain blurs the distinction between the senses—maybe all the senses together.
Charles Burchfield seems to have been one of those people. His senses were always on overdrive. He wrote in his journal of being either overjoyed or terrified by literally seeing the musical sounds of nature or hearing the beauty of a time and place.
Wassily Kandinski once wrote: Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.” Also, after an opera, “I saw all my colours in spirit, before my eyes. Wild, almost crazy lines were sketched in front of me.
Ernst Kirchner fought against his primal nature his whole life, using alcohol and drugs to calm his irrational fears. Institutionalized, he would emerge and plunge back into his art. I have always believed that an implosion of his senses, hearing and seeing and feeling, and even touching, was the overwhelming force that drove his work.
I included this painting of mine in another post—I was writing about hope and spirituality. The painting was born of a fusion of the senses and was joined by a flood of visual memories–-and the sounds of past dreams.
PTSD is synesthesia for many of us. It’s the intensity of our interwoven senses. The colors of everything around us can become one with the furious sounds of life, both terrible and sweet. Natural scents can lift us into the past and open up emotions…and become overwhelming—frightening. We need to reach for the spiritual and let our senses, our collective synesthesia, lift us beyond the traumas of our ordinary struggles…to touch the supernatural.
I loved this post! Thinking of color and sound came at just the right moment for me. Thanks!
The last paragraph is music to my eyes! Yes! That’s exactly how it feels , everything is interwoven