the ocular harpsichord of louis-bertrand castel - Gewina

Castel's ocular harpsichord 63
The tones are measured out to it, accounted to it, harmonically, melodically; an
invisible, arousing Spirit talks with our feeling self in succession."'*
The later writings of Herder seem to fit in with the then freshly blossoming
German Romantic Naturphilosophie, in which the unity of nature and the
connectedness of man with nature were much emphasized. One of the earliest
books that made these ideas popular outside Germany was De TAllemagne, by
Madame de Stael, who had spent most of the exile Napoleon had forced her
into in Germany. In her book she brought back, unknowingly, the ocular
harpsichord to France, as she described how
the analogies of the various elements of physical nature together reveal the supreme law of
creation, variety in unity and unity in variety. What is more astonishing than, for instance, the
rapport between sounds and forms, between sounds and colours? ... a certain savant wanted to
construct an ocular harpsichord which by the harmony of colours could imitate the delight that
music gives. Incessantly we compare painting with music and music with painting, because the
emotions we experience reveal to us analogies where cold observation discerns only differences.
Each plant, each flower contains the whole system of the universe; a brief moment of life hides
eternity in its bosom, the weakest atom is a worid and the world is perhaps but an atom.'^
It is not so much this sort of general programmatic statement that reveals an
impact of colour music on Romanticism, however, as rather the use that early
Romantic poets and novelists made of it. In 1781/1782, while travelling through
Italy, Wilhelm Heinse read Mendelssohn's Briefe iiber die Empfindungen and
commented on it in a notebook. He agreed with McndeLssohn that "it certainly is
Fragment meant for Herder's journal Adrasiea (1801-1802), but finally not included by
Herder. It was published posthumously in 1809. In Werke, vol. 24, pp. 436-440: "Warum sollte man
nun die Farbenleiter nicht mit der Tonleiter vcrgleichen? ... Der Umfang beider Scalen so
verschiedner Sinne ist wunderbarer Weise in seiner 'V'erhaltniBgliedern ahnlich. obgleich irrational
geordnet. Die Structur unsres Auges und Ohrs, oder viclmehr unsres Seh- und Hornervs, muB eine
Aehlichkeil gcben, die sehr denkbar ist ... Auch wiirde hieraus erklarlich, warum gewiBe Tone,
gewiBe Farben Diesem und Jedem lieber sind als andre; sie sind das VerhiiltniB der Scala, bei
welchem sein Organ das meiste Wohlbehagen findet, indem es von hieraus sich selbst die Scala aufs
bequemste ordnet. ... nur darf man beide eben nach unserm Clavichord nicht fixieren. Andre
Nationen theilten und theilcn die Scala anders; sie liebten andre Intervalle wie andre Farben";
"Harmonisch mit dem geschwungenen klingenden Korpcr klingt in uns ein geistiges Clavichord und
tonet ihm nach. Zugemessen, zugezahlt werden ihm die Tone, harmonisch, melodisch; ein
unsichtbarer, weekender Geist .spricht mit unserm fiihlcnden Ich in Succession."
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Stael Holstein, De TAllemagne, vol. 3, pp. 149-150: "Les analogies des divers elements dc la
nature physique entre eux servent a constater la supreme loi de la creation, la variete dans
I'unite, et I'unite dans la variete. Qu'y a-t-il de plus etonnant, par exemple, que le rapport des
sons et des formes, des sons et des couleurs? ... un savant a voulu faire un clavecin pour les yeux
qui put imiter par I'harmonie des couleurs le plaisir qui cause la musique. Sans cesse nous
comparons la peinture a la musique, et la musique a la peinture, parceque les emotions que nous
eprouvons nous revelent des analogies ou I'observation froide ne verroit que des differences.
Chaque plante, chaque fleur contient le systeme entier de I'univers; un instant de vie recele en
son sein retemile, le plus foible atome est un monde, et le monde peut-etre n'est qu'un atome."