Thursday, January 11, 2007

Listening to Kandinsky

I don't know anything about art, but when I saw some Kandinsky prints a few years ago, I knew I liked them. Perhaps it had something to do with music. I recently discovered that Kandinsky claimed to be a synesthete.

Synesthetes are a bit like superheroes, in that they have special powers. Kandinsky could apparently hear certain aspects of his art (shapes, colours, etc.) He could also paint sounds, like "middle C" for example. That's pretty cool.

I certainly don't have this power, but tonight, as I was clicking through various Kandinsky images on the web, I heard a kind of buzzing in my head.

It could have been the sake (お酒) I was drinking, but I don't think so.

2 comments:

Yu-chan said...

That's cool ne! I wish I could hear art and draw sounds. What kind of sounds he heard, I wonder.

Sean O'Hagan said...

Look at the yellow circle to the right in the image above. I think he heard a trombone blast playing Do.