The magazine MAQ February 2019 February 2019 | Page 156

BOX

“Synesthesia” is taken from the Greek words syn meaning together and aisthesis meaning perception, an involuntary physical experience of a cross-modal association, whereby the stimulation of one sense reliably causes a perception in one or more different senses.

General features of the phenomenon indicate a life-long stability between the inter-sensory associations. If the word hammer is red with white speckles, it is always perceived thusly.

The artist Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), along with composers such as Scriabin, Messiaen and Schoenberg, was one of the earliest documented people to experience the scientific phenomenon known as synesthesia.

Kandinsky writes:

“It is clear that the harmony of colors is based only on one principle:

effective contact with the soul.

This foundation can be defined as the principle of inner necessity"