Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1
Ph.D, Department of Islamic Arts, Faculty of Islamic Crafts, Tabriz Islamic Art University, Tabriz, Iran.
2
Instructor, Department of Graphic, Faculty of Architecture and Art, University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran, Corresponding Author.
3
Associate Professor, Department of Visual Arts, Faculty of Visual Arts, Tabriz Islamic Art University,Tabriz, Iran.
Abstract
Although The neurophysiological basis of synthesia is associative connections between different regions of the the functional structor of the brain and synaptic connections form their basis, from the perspective of the neuropsychology of synesthesia, creativity is a sensory stimuli. it reflects the objective realities of the external world in the brain and integrates them with the common senses, moving along the path of interpretation, understanding, and cognition so that phenomena emerge via synesthesia creatively, finding an artistic spirit. Synesthesia is a deliberate attempt to evoke different sensory experiences in the audience through the liaison of music and color. The efforts of Kandinsky, Klee, Enrico Prampolini, and other artists and poets to use other sensory tools for a new understanding of visual elements and qualities and establish connectivity with the sensory perceptions of other artistic mediums such as music or architecture are also associated with synesthesia.
Even Wagner believed in synthesizing the mediums of painting, dance, poetry, and music in a complete work of art and the existence of a world of sound alongside the world of light. In Iranian graphics, Ghobad Shiva’s works seem to establish connectivity among sensory perceptions-- the inseparable relationship between painting and graphics in his works is associated with the climax of graphics in the 19th-century West. In this era, the extent of the influence that painters such as Jules Cheret and Toulouse-Lautrec had on the poster design process was so significant that Jules Chéret, nicknamed “the father of the modern poster.” Lautrec is also a painter who created graphic works influenced by Japanese woodblock prints, opening a new path for modern posters. His works seem rooted in the history of Iranian painting because he believes that graphics did not come from outside Iran, contrary to shared ideas. However, instead, its reproduction technology did-- Iranians did not have a museum painting, and such a painting was the source of communication with the West during the Safavid era. He presumed that Iranian painting should be considered modern graphics with a consumption aspect. In creating his works, he paid attention to the main features of the structure of Iranian painting, abstraction, unique and traditional brilliant coloring, and idealistic and unrealistic atmosphere. Above all, he sought Iranian painting abstraction in his posters. However, relying on this abstraction, He achieved a new expression in creating music-themed posters in which visual and auditory sensory perceptions are cmbined. As a result, synesthesia appears in a new way and That is the main issue of this study. The research question is how synesthesia can be analyzed in Ghobad Shiva’s 70s music-themed posters.
This qualitative study was done via a descriptive-analytical method,using library and documentary research (internet and archival sources). The study was done based on induction-based analysis by which the researcher achieved an analytical genealogy through data classification, finding patterns in and out of the data, and looking for patterns in the data. The research process was as follows: first, all of Ghobad Shiva’s posters were received from the artist’s catalog. Then, a total of 82 posters, created during 1970-1980 (the 70s) were collected. graphic works in music were numerous due to the many festivals, concerts, and music-related events of that era. Then, thirty-nine music-themed posters were selected via a purposive sampling technique based on the connection of the posters with their music themes. In the analysis stage, the works were classified based on the artist’s techniques in creating the poster, the works employing synesthesia were analyzed.
If synesthesia is a neurological phenomenon, then the five senses are entertwined. Synesthesia activates a stimulus received through one sense throughanother, which is used in art to design alternatives to sensory experiences. The human perceptual system creates multi-sensory patterns of physical objects in mind. Perceptual objects are often multi-sensory, containing auditory, visual, tactile, and similar information.
The first step in creating multi-sensory perceptual objects is taken as soon as the stimulus is presented to one of the sensory channels. A set of neural processes couple together information received from other sensory aspects. Synesthesia is the experience of two or more emotions where only one is stimulated, and in literature and art, it is used to explain one sense employing another.
Equalization of musical steps and skips with colors by Newton; equalization of blue, green, yellow, and red colors with musical notes Do, Re, Mi, and Sol in Kessel’s famous organs; equalization of the sounds of instruments in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Principles of Orchestration; and equalization of the sounds A, E, I, U, and O with black, white, red, green, and blue colors in the works of poets such as Rimbaud in the poem “Voyelles” or “Vowels” (literary synesthesia); Schopenhauer’s seminal statement that the world is all a manifestation of will and music, and all arts have the desire to reach music; or the evidence showing that Franz Liszt and Olivier Messiaen used the synesthesia of colors and musical notes and sounds or musical keyboards (chromesthesia), all inform us about the long history and significance of synesthesia in philosophy, literature, music, and visual arts.
The music posters of Shiva’s fifties are generally designed and executed for the chamber orchestra of radio and television. On a functional level, these posters carried the message of concerts and used various elements to convey this message. Shiva’s attention to the difference between the boundaries of painting and graphics made him follow the standards and rules of graphics. However, he did not look away from painting abstraction, and his works speak for themselves. Considering the definition, function, and mission of a poster, Shiva also achieved synesthesia through abstraction. Thus, Shiva’s 70s music-themed posters can be divided into six categories based on his individual graphic techniques:
Representating synthesis of real musical objects with abstract forms
Human face
Representation of plants
Representation of birds
Application of the Seven Decorative Principles of Iranian Art
Application of visual elements
Table 7 summarizes the poster-creating techniques, dominant elements, and colors used in Shiva’s works.
Like Klee, Kandinsky, and many artists, Shiva used such a perceptual process to enrich his works. Generally, from 1970 to 1980, his works were categorized into eight categories based on art-creating techniques and the employed elements: summarized representation of musical objects with visual elements, representation of the human face, representation of plants, representation of birds, Seven Decorative Principles of Iranian Art (Abr Principle), and the application of visual elements. The present study displayed that Ghobad Shiva has succeeded in showing synesthesia in his posters using the visual elements of line, point, color (black, blue, yellow, red, gray, brown), and also the visual elements in the posters of the sixth category. Synesthesia in these works acts as a perceptual-neurological phenomenon which, by stimulating the visual perception (facing poster designing as a field in visual art), produces unusual experiences in another unstimulated sense, i.e., the auditory perception so that the experience of the second sense happens only at the perceptual level, conveying the association of the musical sound to the audience. This perception or association can also happen between sensory dimensions and other cognitive and processing paths.
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