At the Crossroads of the Senses
The Synaesthetic Metaphor Across the Arts in European Modernism
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
At the Crossroads of the Senses
The Synaesthetic Metaphor Across the Arts in European Modernism
About this book
Inspired by Richard Wagner's idea of the total artwork, European modernist artists began to pursue multimedia projects that mixed colors, sounds, and shapes. Polina Dimova's At the Crossroads of the Senses traces this new sensory experience of synaesthesia—the physiological or figurative blending of senses—as a modernist phenomenon from its scientific description in the late nineteenth century to its prevalence in the early twentieth.
Structured around twenty theses on synaesthesia, this book explores the integral relationship between modernist art, science, and technology, tracing not only how modernist artists perceptually internalized and absorbed technology and its effects but also how they appropriated it to achieve their own aesthetic, metaphysical, and social goals. Through case studies of prominent multimodal artists—Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley, Richard Strauss, Aleksandr Scriabin, Wassily Kandinsky, František Kupka, Andrei Bely, and Rainer Maria Rilke—At the Crossroads of the Senses reveals the color-forms and color-sounds that, for these artists, laid the foundations of the world and served as the catalyst for the flourishing exchanges among the arts at the fin de siècle.
Rooted in archival research in Russia, Germany, France, and the Czech Republic, At the Crossroads of the Senses taps overlooked scientific sources to offer a fresh perspective on European modernism. Sensory studies scholars, literary critics, and art and music historians alike will welcome its many contributions, not least among them a refreshing advocacy for a kind of sensuous reading practice.
Frequently asked questions
- Essential is ideal for learners and professionals who enjoy exploring a wide range of subjects. Access the Essential Library with 800,000+ trusted titles and best-sellers across business, personal growth, and the humanities. Includes unlimited reading time and Standard Read Aloud voice.
- Complete: Perfect for advanced learners and researchers needing full, unrestricted access. Unlock 1.4M+ books across hundreds of subjects, including academic and specialized titles. The Complete Plan also includes advanced features like Premium Read Aloud and Research Assistant.
Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Information
Table of contents
- COVER Front
- Copyright Page
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Notes to Introduction
- Chapter 1: Synaesthetic Genealogies Common Sense, Artistic Synthesis, and Universal Correspondences
- Notes to Chapter 1
- Chapter 2: Synaesthesia at the Fin de Siècle Scientific and Artistic Discourses
- Notes to Chapter 2
- Chapter 3: Deranging the Senses The Dissemination of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé Across the Arts
- Notes to Chapter 3
- Chapter 4: Merging the SensesThe Russian Symbolist Poetics of Light and Aleksandr Scriabin’s Electric Prometheus
- Notes to Chapter 4
- Chapter 5: Sensory Counterpoints Wassily Kandinsky’s Color-Sounds and the Dissonance of Modernity
- Notes to Chapter 5
- Chapter 6: František Kupka’s Synaesthetic Disks Music, Color, Motion
- Notes to Chapter 6
- Chapter 7: “Bright Patches and Dots of Light” Andrei Bely’s Synaesthetic Abstractions
- Notes to Chapter 7
- Chapter 8: Translating the Senses Auguste Rodin’s and Rainer Maria Rilke’s Synaesthetic Fragments
- Notes to Chapter 8
- Chapter 9: The Senses, Fragmented and United Rainer Maria Rilke, Orpheus, and the Phonograph
- Notes to Chapter 9
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index