GG: Sights and Sounds

["Joseph Podlesnik" <veronese@jerseycape.com>]

Manuel:

Here is the response I promised you. Sit down with a nice cup of whatever
it is you like to drink and relax, this is a lengthy one -- a passage from
a book I've quoted earlier: E.H. Gombrich's "Art and Illusion" (Princeton
U. Press, pp 366-370.) Gombrich, by the way, was a student in many ways of
the 20th century critical rationalist philosopher Karl Popper.      (I do
hope I'm not straying too far from GG with this, but it does pertain to our
recent discussions.  Also, my apologies to those who may not be familiar
with the painters Guiseppe Archimboldo, Piet Mondrian, and Gino Severini,
or the artworks mentioned.)


>"Indeed, in 'Cratylus', Socrates toys with the idea that the principle of
onomatopoeia, of imitating sounds might extend beyond the obvious instances
I have quoted: that vocal imitation does not stop where the realm of sounds
ends but extends beyond into that of sight and movement; that the letter
'r' will suggest something flowing or moving, and the letter 'i' something
sharp or bright. This is dangerous ground, a favorite haunt of cranks and
madmen, and yet I think it is ground which will have to be traversed. For
we all feel that sounds can indeed imitate or match visual impressions --
that words like 'flicker,' 'blinking,' scintillating,' are at least as good
approximations in the language to the visual impression as 'tick-tock,' or
'choo choo' were to the auditory ones. What is called 'synesthesia,' the
splashing over of impressions from one sense modality to another, is a fact
to which all languages testify. They work both ways -- from sight to sound
and from sound to sight. We speak of loud colors or bright sounds, and
everyone knows what we mean. Nor are the ear and the eye the only senses
that are thus converging to a common center. There is touch in such terms
as 'velvety voice' and 'a cold light,' taste with 'sweet harmonies' of
colors or sounds, and so on through countless permutations.
     
     Artists at all times have been interested in these correspondences,
which are invoked in a famous poem by Baudelaire, but the Romantics and
symbolists were particularly intent on exploring the laws of synesthesia.
Rimbaud assigned colors to the five vowels, thus translating auditory
impressions into visual ones. Musicians, in their turn, were fond of
representing the visible world in tones -- we need only look down the list
of titles Debussy gave to his pieces to see his faith in the efficacy of
such evocation: 'Bruyeres,' 'Clair de Lune,' Feux d'artifice' all represent
or paint visual experiences on the keys of the piano. Some artists indulged
in the dream of combining the world of sound and that of sight in higher
orders; the fantastic painter Archimboldo took the lead in the 17th century
with a color piano, and the idea persists to Wagner, Scriabin, and Disney's
'Fantasia.' Finally painting, in withdrawing from the exploration of pure
visibility took up the challenge and explored the world of sound....

     And yet can we really compare such renderings of sound patterns in
visual terms with the rendering of visual impressions in visual terms?
Granted even that most of us experience such synesthetic images with more
or less intensity, are they not completely subjective and private,
inaccessible and uncommunicable? Can there be real objective discoveries of
good and better matches in these elusive spheres as there were in the
discovery of visual analogies to visual experience? Can the world of the
mind, of the dream, be explored by experiments that result in accepted
conventions as was the world of the waking eye? Much of our assessment of
20th century art may depend on our answer to this question, for though not
all, or even most, of it is concerned with synesthesia proper, all or most
of it tries to represent the world of the mind where shapes and colors
stand for feelings. I believe the analysis of representation may indeed
lead us to understand these attempts better and to assess the chances of
any new experiments in that direction.

     For this analysis has taught us to remain aware of three factors --
the medium, the mental set, and the problem of equivalence. When we talk
about art we usually take all these matters for granted -- they are the
8/9ths of the iceberg that remain submerged and do not obtrude on our
awareness. But many an aesthetician's ship has suffered shipwreck for
disregarding them.

     To enjoy the Mondrian I need not think of any of these things. But if
anyone should ask me seriously if Mondrian had represented a bit of
boogiewoogie so accurately that I could now recognize the style if you
played it to me, I would have to point to the underwater cliffs -- the
need, that is, for the context in which the communication takes place. If
you made the context sufficiently specific I could. I trust myself to plump
for the right piece if one played two contrasting pieces to me -- one slow
and blue, one fast and noisy. For here the Mondrian would give me a pointer
-- a pointer for that game which psychologists call 'matching.' Given a
simple choice, Mondrian tells me in what class, category, or pigeonhole of
music to seek for the equivalent. Without a knowledge of possibilities,
this type of representation would work even less than the representation of
the visible world that we also found to be dependent on our knowledge of
what things might be.

     But our analysis is not quite complete yet. For my understanding
depends not only on my expectation and experience of possible types of
music, but also on my knowledge of possible types of painting -- in other
words, on the mental set with which I approach the Mondrian.

     In most of us the name of  Mondrian conjures up the expectation of
severity, of an art of straight lines and a few primary colors in carefully
balanced rectangles. Seen against this background, the boogiewoogie picture
gives indeed the impression of gay abandon. It is so much less severe than
the alternative we have in mind that we have no hesitation in matching it
in our mind with this style of popular music. But this impression is in
fact grounded on our knowledge of the restricted choice open to the artist
within his self-imposed discipline. Let us imagine for a moment that we
were told the painting is by Severini, who is known for his futuristic
paintings that try to capture the rhythm of dance music in works of
brilliant chaos. Would we then still feel the Mondrian belongs in the
pigeonhole with boogiewoogie, or would we accept a label calling it Bach's
'First Brandenburg Concerto'."<