Music and color: the phenomenon of color hearing

Even in ancient India, there were peculiar ideas about the close relationship of music and color. In particular, the Indians believed that each person has his own melody and color. The brilliant Aristotle claimed in the treatise “On the Soul” that the correlation of colors is similar to musical harmonies. The Pythagoreans preferred white, as the dominant one in the Universe, and the colors of the spectrum in their view corresponded to seven musical tones.

The colors and sounds in the cosmogony of the Greeks are active creative forces. In the XVIII century, the monk scientist L. Castel decided to construct a “color harpsichord”. Pressing a key would present the gaze of the listener with a bright color spot in a special window above the instrument in the form of a colored moving ribbon, flags shining with various colors of precious stones, illuminated by torches or candles to enhance the effect. Composers Rameau, Telemann and Gretry reacted with attention to the ideas of Castel. At the same time, he was sharply criticized by encyclopedists, who considered the analogy “seven gamma sounds – seven spectrum colors” to be untenable. Continue reading →