Nov, 01, 2008
Leonardo On-Line Reviews
Synesthesia: Art and the Mind
written by Amy Ione
ART REVIEW
EXHIBIT: 18 September—20 December 2008
The McMaster Museum of Art (in collaboration with the Department of
Psychology, Neuroscience & Behavior, McMaster University and the
7th Annual Meeting of the American Synesthesia Association (ASA)
Reviewed by Amy Ione
Berkeley CA 94704 US
ione@diatrope.com
The extraordinary Synesthesia: Art and the Mind
exhibition at the McMaster Museum of Art highlights artists who are
known synesthetes (David Hockney, Joan Mitchell, Marcia Smilack, and
Carol Steen) and works by artists thought to be synesthetic (including
Charles Burchfield, Tom Thomson, Wassily Kandinsky, and Vincent van
Gogh). Presented in one room, with each artist’s contributions grouped
together, the exhibit both allows a visitor to focus on the unique
attributes of each artist and to see the overlapping dynamics among
them. Had the exhibition merely provided a rare opportunity to explore
the high-quality work synesthetic artists, it would have made a
tremendous contribution. Fortunately, the co-curators, Carol Steen and
Greta Berman, went one step further and incorporated the historical
research of Heinrich Klüver’s (1897-1979) on “Form Constants” and
reproductions of artwork by several early twentieth century synesthetic
artists studied by another scientist, Georg Anschütz (1886 -1953). In
addition, and much to the credit of all involved, a catalog featuring
six scholars and several color reproductions accompanies the
exhibition. This book make Synesthesia: Art and the Mind available to those unable to attend and will provide historical documentation for later generations.
Synesthesia is an involuntary joining of senses in which the real
information of one sense is accompanied by a perception in another
sense. Older views that this form of perception was either abnormal or
metaphoric have been replaced with a growing understanding that, while
idiosyncratic, the synesthetic experience is quite real and more
pervasive than formerly thought. Research that has confirmed the
reality of synesthesia has also led to a re-evaluation of the symbolic,
metaphoric and associative approaches to art that have long aimed at
weaving the rich and resonant relationship among the senses together.
More specifically, we now know that the experiences of genuine, genetic
synesthetes are qualitatively different from the type of cross-modal
intensification we have when engaged with an approach to art that is
intended to stimulate multiple senses (e.g.,
an opera or a ballet, etc.). What this means is that synesthetes have a
life-long, seemingly automatic ability to combine sensory experiences
that accompanies all aspects of their lives. Research has confirmed
these combinations (e.g., color and sound, colors and letters,
etc.) and found that they are both involuntary and consistent over
time. We also know that about 5% of the population has one of
approximately 54 kinds of synesthesia and that creative people are more
likely to be synesthetes (or at least to acknowledge their
synesthesia).
Since cross-modality has many associations with art historically, the Synesthesia: Art and the Mind
exhibition offers a priceless opportunity to think about what artists
with synesthesia add to our understanding of art per se, how the brain
of an artist with synesthesia differs from that of a non-synesthete
(and from the brain of individuals of the general population), and how
our individual endowments are harnessed in creative pursuits. While
this review can hardly cover the impact of the McMaster show on my
thinking, I will attempt to capture its essence in some overly
abbreviated thoughts on the exhibition and the themes that accompanied
it.
First, I was quite impressed by the display as a symphonic whole. For example, Carol Steen’s Runs off in Front, Gold,
2003, although off to the side of the entrance, was the first piece I
noticed upon entering the room. Somehow, its powerful statement
immediately brought out the quality of all of the work on display. One
of the curators of this exhibition, Steen has had a major role in
bringing synesthetes together, educating the public about the reality
of the synesthetic experience, and highlighting how synesthesia can aid
an artist in capturing the ineffable. Steen is a visual artist who
paints the brilliantly colored images she sees when she listens to
music. [Some of it is available at
http://www.synesthesia.info/slides/.] Although her abstract pieces are
expressive and essentially indescribable, suffice it to say that there
is a freshness, fluidity, and musicality to Steen’s work; she has said
that she To oversimplify, the layering and rhythm of the paint had an
energy that is reminiscent of aspects of the work of Jackson Pollack
and Mark Rothko, who were not synesthetes, but are known for the way
their paintings often trigger complex sensory and perceptual
experiences for the viewer. What really stayed in my mind as I observed
Steen’s art, and what I wish I could convey in this review, is how the
strength of her work is simply lost in web reproductions and
publications.
The placement of Steen’s artwork nicely played off of the
abstractions in Joan Mitchell’s paintings on the one side and the more
figurative work of the Canadian painter Tom Thompson on the other. The Runs off in Front, Gold piece, for example, had an extremely close resonance with Tom Thomson’s Brown Bushes, Late Autumn
(1914), a small oil on wood from the National Gallery of Canada
collection that has similar colors and energy. A largely self-taught
artist who began to paint seriously in his thirties, Thomson’s
figurative work contains a tension between abstraction and landscape
that also brings to mind Cézanne’s late paintings and watercolors,
which often dissolve into color geometries. In terms of synesthesia,
there was an uncanny resemblance between the Steen abstractions and the
more representational Thomson, who also brought to mind the way van
Gogh’s strokes added expressive elements to a figure or scene. This
reference to van Gogh is not an arbitrary one as it is said that van
Gogh maddened his music teacher by stubbornly testing his ideas on
tone-color correspondences during piano lessons. This remark (and
others) has led some to say that van Gogh was a synesthete. To
highlight the connection between a van Gogh and synesthesia, a van Gogh
from the McMaster collection was included in the show next to the
Thomson piece.
Second, because each artist had several pieces grouped
together, except van Gogh who was represented with only one painting,
the display permitted the pieces to echo one another and allowed the
viewer to easily see the style and personality of each individual
artist. I particularly appreciated this arrangement when looking at
Marcia Smilack’s five pieces. Smilack, who calls herself a
“Reflectionist,” photographs reflections on water as she hears them.
The tantalizing results have a painterly quality that is unlike the
work of any other artist I know. Writing about one piece,
“Kandinsky-ish,” Smilack says:
“I watched the reflection on water until the pink turned to
satin against my skin. As I watched the concentric circles dilating as
they formed and reformed, I soon felt myself become one with the
motion. Free of thought, I felt myself become what I was looking at and
clicked the shutter. A few days later, I was in a store looking for an
art postcard when I came upon one that startled me and gave me a jolt
of excitement, for the painting looked just like my new image (to me).
I can only say that my sensation of recognition was unmistakable and
unshakeable and remains so to this day. When I turned it over to find
out who had painted the image, I discovered it was Wassily Kandinsky.
The painting was “Squares with Concentric Circles.” My only question,
then and now, was whether Kandinsky had the same form of synesthesia
that I have.”
Smilack’s works were hung next to the three Kandinsky’s in the
show and I was drawn to the way the abstractness of his work seems more
formally developed than Smilack’s repertoire. Indeed, what I find most
appealing about Smilack’s work is her ability to mix abstraction with
representation and fluidity with form. Thinking about her results,
(viewable at marciasmilack.com/), I am tempted to say that the
photo-paintings are so sensitively seasoned that they just taste right,
although I am not a synesthete. What my comment means is that the work
has the flavor of a properly prepared gourmet dish comprised of
ingredients that one might not be able to identify precisely, but whose
combination one will never forget. Ironically, the painterly quality of
Smilack’s photographs brings David Hockney’s photocollages to mind
because the “look” of his photographs is painterly more than
photographic. The irony here is that three of Hockney’s pieces are also
on display at the museum. These pieces are representative of how he
created opera sets, using his synesthesic color/sounds to inform his
artwork.
Finally, in sitting down to write this review, I found my
enthusiasm for the artwork was boundless and yet my “reviewer’s mind”
kept returning to some of the critical ideas that accompanied the
show’s presentation, Heinrich Klüver’s ideas about Form Constants in
particular. At the risk of trying to say too much in a limited space, I
will nonetheless offer a few thoughts on the historical ideas that were
brought into the show.
Briefly, early in the twentieth century, Klüver, a scientist,
systematically studied the effects of mescaline (peyote) on the
subjective experiences of its users. His investigations showed that the
drug produced hallucinations characterized by bright, highly saturated
colors and vivid imagery. In addition, Klüver found that mescaline
produced recurring geometric patterns in different users. He called
these patterns 'form constants' and categorized four types: lattices
(including honeycombs, checkerboards, and triangles), cobwebs, tunnels,
and spirals. This work also pointed to what is now called a “geometry
of the mind” and is common to synesthesia, illusions, hallucinations,
migraine auras, ordinary perceptions, and can be seen in primitive art.
Richard Cytowic, a neuroscientist who studies synesthesia, has said
that Klüver showed that a limited number of perceptual frameworks
appear to be built into the nervous system and that these are probably
part of our genetic endowment.
Klüver’s work with Form Constants was expanded in the 1970s by
Jack Cowan and others, who recognized that the kind of experience
Klüver studied is not just a trait we can associate with hallucinogenic
experiences, but is in fact a general property of brain structure, more
specifically the region known as the primary visual cortex or V1. Since
many of the recent studies I am acquainted with that look at color
hearing seem to use spoken words in testing subjects, and stress
relationships between colored hearing and cortical area V4, the
introduction of form constants in connection with synesthesia raised
several (hard to articulate) questions in my mind. A short review can
hardly address my musings.
The case a Jonathan I., the color-blind artist studied by
Oliver Sacks and others is among the few reported cases on individuals
who have lost their ability to see color but retain their ability to
see form and movement. What makes him relevant here is that he was both
a painter and a synesthete. Briefly, Jonathan I. lost his ability to
see and even imagine colors after a minor car accident. He also lost
his color-hearing synesthesia after his accident. Oliver Sacks’
diagnosis was that Jonathan I. had cerebral achromatopsia, a loss of
color sensation throughout his entire visual field caused by damage to
the cerebral cortex. Ronald Hoffman’s Visual Intelligence
notes that Louis Verrey 1854-1916, a Swiss ophthalmologist, discussed a
patient with a similar kind of neurological event in 1888. Verrey’s
clinical and postmortem observations of his patient found damage to the
most inferior part of the occipital lobe, in the lingual and fusiform
gyri, which are located near the primary visual area, V1. Although no
reliable anatomical information is available on Jonathan I., John
Harrison has written (2001) that it is assumed Jonathan I., too,
suffered damage to the lingual and fusiform gyri of the brain. The
larger point here is that when Mr. I. his lost his ability to see
color, he also lost his color hearing synesthesia.
When Verrey made his proposal, at the end of the 19th century,
his conclusions were hotly contested. Hoffman’s discussion points out
that the full implications of Verrey's work became clear in 1973 when
the neurologist Semir Zeki discovered the “color center,” the area in
the brain of the rhesus monkey that is specialized for seeing colors.
When this area is destroyed in the monkey or human brain, neither the
monkey nor the human can see colors. Based on this, color vision
increasingly was associated with V4. At the time of Zeki's discovery
neurophysiologists were beginning to establish the outlines of a new
view of the visual cortex, suggesting that there are specific
functional units for seeing form, motion, and colors. [His work has
also talked about abstract art activating principally two areas of the
visual cortex of the brain (V1 and V4) and suggested that different
schools of art have their own neurological basis.] Further research on
synesthetic artists might consider V1 to a greater degree, particularly
in light of recent tests that have found that have found if researchers
stimulate the lingual and fusiform gyri in human subjects by means of
magnetic fields, the subjects report seeing chromatophenes---colored
phosphenes in the form of rings and halos, much like some of historical
work included in this show. Since Carol Steen has the kind of
synesthesia that evokes a perceptual experience within the mind’s eye
(as compared to a projective synesthete who would place the synesthete
experience within the world itself), her visual art, while clearly
including a visual component, is also a reflection of the images she
sees in her mind when she listens to music.
These comments, while somewhat free form, bring to mind that
the relationship among form constancies, synesthesia, and creativity is
a complex one; as are the operations of the brain. I am drawn to ask
whether the linking of synesthesia with creative production informs the
brain in a way that both harnesses the synesthesia and reaches beyond
it. Perhaps a kind of hypersensitivity inherent in the creative process
brings the synesthesia into the process in a way that might integrate
it with creativity and general and elevate other forms of visual
experience. This kind of hypersensitivity hypothesis, I would think,
could also explain why artists who are not synesthetes, Paul Klee for
example, produced works that are sometimes coupled with synesthete
artists due to their stylistic components and cross-modal intentions.
Klee’s associative process offers a fascinating counterpoint because he
deliberately sought to bring a musical quality to his visual art,
though more in terms of its formal structure than its experiential
roots. Clearly, there is much to learn.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that this show is virtually
unique in its focus on synesthesia. Aside from the early twentieth
century exhibitions that accompanied the conferences organized by Georg
Anschütz (in conjunction with his publications of Farbe-Ton-Forschungen),
I am unaware of any shows that have focused on synesthesia per se.
Indeed, shows classified as such generally have failed to distinguish
synesthetes from non-synesthetes, mixing symbolic, associative, and
metaphoric efforts to convey cross-modal experience with work that may
have been done by synesthetes. These alternative shows, such as the
2005 Visual Music exhibition, where the idea of synesthesia is
used as an audience draw, have failed to distinguish among genetic,
associative, symbolic, and metaphoric conceptions of synesthesia. The
curators of the popular Visual Music show, in my view, missed
an opportunity to educate the public about what new research in
synesthesia has revealed to us. The McMaster effort does not make this
mistake. Co-curated by Carol Steen, a synesthetic artist, and Greta
Berman, a professor of art history at The Juilliard School and a
researcher in this area, and coordinated by Prof. Daphne Maurer,
Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behavior at McMaster
University and Carol Podedworny, the Director of the McMaster Museum of
Art; this is an exceptional show. Unfortunately, the McMaster show will
not travel. The catalog, to some degree, allows scholars and the public
to continue to savor it after it closes. Information about the
purchasing the catalog is available at:
http://www.mcmaster.ca/museum/exhibitions_publications.htm.
