Synesthesia: Art and the Mind (review)

The extraordinary exhibition Synesthesia: Art and the Mind, 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 allows a visitor both 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 high-quality work by synesthetic artists, it would have made a tremendous contribution. Fortunately, the co-curators, Carol Steen and Greta Berman, went one step further and incorporated historical research by Heinrich Klüver (1897– 1979) on Form Constants and reproductions of artwork by several early 20th-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 makes 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 reevaluation 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 lifelong, 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).

As cross-modality has many associations with art historically, the 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 her work is available at <www.synesthesia.info/slides/>.) Although her abstract pieces are expressive and essentially...