Was Kandinsky a Synesthete?

Ione, Amy; Tyler, Christopher

doi:10.1076/jhin.12.2.223.15540

Cited by 26 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 6 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…It seems that it is not a coincident that many famous artists showed synaesthesia (composers: Nicolas Rymski-Korsakow, Alexander Skriabin, Arnold Schönberg, György Ligeti, Oliviera Messiaen; painters: Eugene Delacroix, Wasyli Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Robert Delaunay, David Hockney. Poets: Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire; or writers: Theodor Hoffman and Vladimir Nabokov (Cazeaux, 1999(Cazeaux, , 2002Ione & Tyler, 2003Nelson & Hitchon, 1999;Warren, 2006). Studies confirmed the higher level of creativity among synaesthetes (Dailey et al, 1997;Domino, 1989Domino, , 1999Rader & Tellegen, 1981Ward, Thompson-Lake, Ely, & Kaminski, 2008).…”

Section: Is There One Synaesthesia or More?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Categorization of Synaesthesia

Rogowska

2011

Review of General Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article is an attempt to synthesize the current knowledge about synaesthesia from many fields such as literature, arts, multimedia, medicine, or psychology. The main goal of this paper is to classify various types and forms of synaesthesia. Besides developmental synaesthesia being likely to play a crucial role in developing cognitive functions (constitutional or neonatal synaesthesia) there are types of synaesthesia acquired during adulthood (e.g., phantom or artificial synaesthesia), momentary synaesthesia triggered temporarily in people who do not show signs of synaesthesia every day (e.g., virtual, narcotic, or posthypnotic synaesthesia), and associational synaesthesia which, semantically speaking, refers to some universal sense relations (e.g., literary, artistic, and multimedia synaesthesia). There is a hypothesis that every kind of synaesthesia holds a different function-compensatory or integrative. It was suggested that synaesthesia can be described in one dimension, showing the intensity of this phenomenon. The stronger types of synaesthesia are: semantic, conceptual, intermodal, synthetic, comprehensive, external and bidirectional. The weaker types of synaesthesia are: sensory, perceptual, intramodal, analytic, partial, internal and unidirectional. There are huge individual differences in the manner that synaesthesia presents itself. By including a classification of kinds, types, and forms of synaesthesia into future experimental research will ensure a better understanding of the nature of this phenomenon, its mechanisms and the role that it plays in developing cognitive processes.

show abstract

Section: Is There One Synaesthesia or More?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Categorization of Synaesthesia

Rogowska

2011

Review of General Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…First, some researchers have noted that synaesthesia is found in a number of famous creative individuals (Mulvenna & Walsh, 2005). A common list of gifted synaesthetes includes the composers Messian (Bernard, 1986) and Scriabin (Peacock, 1985), the painters Kandinsky (Ione & Tyler, 2003) and Hockney (Cytowic, 2002), the physicist Feynman (1988) and the author Nabokov (1967). However, without a comparison of the prevalence of synaesthesia in such gifted individuals relative to the general population these claims are not convincing.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Synaesthesia, creativity and art: What is the link?

Ward

Thompson-Lake

Ely

et al. 2008

British J of Psychology

128

108

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

It has been suggested that individuals with synaesthesia may show heightened creativity as a result of being able to form meaningful associations between disparate stimuli (e.g. colour, sound). In this study, a large sample (N=82) of people with various kinds of synaesthesia were given two psychometric tests of creativity (Remote Associates Test, Alternate Uses Test) and were also asked about the amount of time engaged in creative arts (visual art, music). There was a significant tendency for synaesthetes to spend more time engaged in creative arts and this was, at least in part, dependent upon the type of synaesthesia experienced. For example, synaesthetes experiencing vision from music were far more likely to play an instrument than their other synaesthetic counterparts. There was no relationship between this tendency and the psychometric measures of creativity, but synaesthetes did outperform controls on one of the two psychometric measures (Remote Associates). We conclude that the tendency for synaesthetes to be more engaged in art is likely to have a different mechanism to psychometric measures of creativity, and that there is no direct link between them. Although synaesthetes may well perform better on some measures of creativity, we suggest that synaesthetes have better bottom-up access to certain associations, but are not necessarily better able to use them flexibly (in divergent thinking).

show abstract

“…That is, the human artist does not compose stylistic elements without subjectivity, even when intending to. We proceed by synthesizing the two superficially divergent concepts of dissonance and consonance [20]. The construction begins by assembling a framework of aesthetic building blocks and then induces chaotic perturbations into the structure until harmony is achieved.…”

Section: An Attempt To Generate Kandinskystyle Paintingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…4) style into the generative machinery of rules and algorithms. Kandinsky once said "that one can feel the multi-sensory consonances and dissonances in simultaneously performed color movements, musical movements and dance movements" [24]. The aesthetic properties displayed in his paintings were perhaps profoundly influenced by his synesthesia [25].…”

Section: An Attempt To Generate Kandinskystyle Paintingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Computational Aesthetics: On the Complexity of Computer-Generated Paintings

Zhang

Harrell

2012

Leonardo

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Ma ny argue that with the rapid advances of modern technology, particularly digital display and computer graphics, digital art is more expressive than traditional visual art. This increased expressive power, compounded with highly advanced artifi cial intelligence, has created tremendous opportunities for the realization of computational aesthetics and even simulated creativity [1]. If the potential of computational aesthetics is achieved, we would see a profound impact on various application domains where computer technology has traditionally played only an assistive role, such as graphic and industrial design. This is not to advocate the possibility of replacing human creativity with computational creativity; rather, the advancement of computational aesthetics would further extend human creativity by providing inspiration to artists and graphic/industrial designers. I. emergIng new dIsCIplInes In Arts And ComputIngWhen combining visual art with digital technology, two lines of questioning tend to emerge. On the one hand are questions such as: "How can the computer automatically generate various forms of visually aesthetic expressions?" On the other hand, some ask: "How can the theory and techniques of traditional visual art help beautify modern technology outputs and products and enhance their usability?" Addressing such questions, two interdisciplinary areas have emerged in recent years: computational aesthetics and aesthetic computing [2]. Both computational aesthetics and aesthetic computing aim at bridging computer science, philosophy, cognitive science and the fi ne arts through analytic and synthetic investigation. Figure 1 illustrates a conceptual map of the relationships between various computer science areas (in rectangular nodes) and arts (in oval nodes), moving from theories to applications. The dotted arrows in Fig. 1 help to conceptualize that computational aesthetics aims at answering the fi rst question above, that is, "How can the computer automatically generate various forms of visually aesthetic expressions?" In other words, computational aesthetics investigates how modern technology helps the arts. This technology in fact serves to create tools that can enhance the expressive power of visual art and heighten human understanding of aesthetic evaluation, perception and meaning. In the reverse direction, illustrated by the dashed arrows in Fig. 1, aesthetic computing addresses the second question-"How can the theory and techniques in the traditional visual arts help beautify modern technology outputs and products and enhance their usability?" This issue includes the aesthetic design of computer algorithms, simulation, visualization, human-machine interfaces and high-tech products, so that users are highly engaged and thus usability is enhanced. An interesting example of aesthetic computing is the application of Kandinsky's aesthetics to Java programming [3]. In 2006, Malina [4] highlighted the aesthetic computing activities published in Leonardo over the previous 40 years.We have previously ex...

show abstract

Was Kandinsky a Synesthete?

Cited by 26 publications

References 6 publications

Categorization of Synaesthesia

Categorization of Synaesthesia

Synaesthesia, creativity and art: What is the link?

Computational Aesthetics: On the Complexity of Computer-Generated Paintings

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About