Dirty Light - Marko Ciciliani

about Castel’s Optique des couleurs. Krüger made detailed construction plans for a colour
organ. In difference to Castel, Krüger’s instrument would have produced colour-plays without
music. However, like Castel, he never managed to realise it.
Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) included psychological and physiological aspects in the
research of pitch-colour analogies that he described in his book Über die Empfindungen
(1755). He emphasized the emotional judgement – as opposed to mainly mathematical criteria
– when deciding about the assignment of colours to pitches.
Hence, the problem situates itself into the realm which can only be detected
emotionally. 45
In Germany the era between 1750-1780 is a period of “aesthetic realisation”. 46 In the
Romantic period the idea of synaesthesia as a spontaneous emotional reaction comes up for
the first time.
Historically, the typical mental structure of the Romantic […] has to be understood as
a contrast to the rationalism of the Enlightment and a reapproachment to neoplatonism,
mysticism and gothic. 47
In the late 18 th century Karl von Eckartshausen (1752-1803) developed visions for a colour
organ. In 1784 he wrote a book titled Augenmusik oder Harmonie der Farben. Unfortunately
it is lost, but it might very well have been the first German book that was entirely dedicated to
colour-pitch analogies. Also his colour organ was apparently never built. At the turn of the
century Johann August Apel (1771-1816) wrote a thorough investigation of colour-pitch
analogies. He eventually came to a negative conclusion, arguing that the nature of light and
sound were too different and that therefore they were not compatible with each other. 48
In the course of the 19 th century the natural sciences were split up into different disciplines
like physics, astronomy, mathematics, psychology, physiology, anthropology and biology.
The investigation of the human senses and their perceptual capabilities became of special
interest in some disciplines. 49 Painting was less and less understood as being related to direct
45 quoted after Auhagen, Wolfgang: Studien zur Tonartencharakteristik in theoretischen Schriften und
Kompositionen vom späten 17. Bis zum Beginnn des 20. Jahrhunderts, Frankfurt a.M.: P.Lang (1983), 79.
46 Nivelle, Armand (1971): Les théories estétiques en Allemagne de Baumgarten à Kant, Paris (1971), 3.
47 Schäfke, Rudolf: Geschichte der Musikästhetik in Umrissen, Berlin (1934), 329.
48 Apel, August: “Ton und Farbe”, in Allg. musikalische Zeitung (Leipzig) 2 (44), 30.7. (1800), 753-762.
49 Jewanski, Jörg: Ist C = Rot, Berlin: Berliner Musik Studien Band 17 (1996), 465.
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