Famous Synesthetes

Synesthesia is by no means a debilitating condition. In fact, many synesthetes achieved prominence in their respective fields.

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Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Nabokov was a Russian-American novelist and short story writer.

• Vladimir grew up in St. Petersburg, went to college in Cambridge, moved to the U.S and taught at Wellesley. He lived in Oregon and Ithaca, New York and eventually moved back to Europe.
• Known for his descriptive detail and intricate wordplay, Nabokov’s most famous novel is Lolita.
• He was a grapheme-color synesthete and often saw words as colored. He often gave his protagonists the same synesthetic senses.
• He described loyalty as a “golden fork in the sun” by the main character Krug in his book Bend Sinister.
• In The Gift a main character says "If I had some paints handy, I would mix burnt sienna and sepia for you as to match the color of a 'ch' sound. And you would appreciate my radiant 's' if I could pour into your cupped hands some of those luminous sapphires that I touched as a child."
• In Nabokov’s memoir Speak, Memory, Nabokov details how his synesthesia has affected him in his life.
• Here is a quote from his memoir: "The long ‘a’of the English alphabet . . . has for me the tint of weathered wood, but a French a evokes polished ebony. This black group also includes hard ‘g’ (vulcanized rubber) and ‘r’ (a sooty rag being ripped). Oatmeal ‘n’, noodle-limp ‘l’, and the ivory-backed hand-mirror of ‘o’ take care of the white. . . . Passing on to the blue group, there is steely ‘x’, thundercloud ‘z’ and huckleberry ‘h’. Since a subtle interaction exists between sound and shape, I see ‘q’ as browner than ‘k’, while ‘s’ is not the light blue of ‘c’, but a curious mixture of azure and mother-of-pearl." (as cited in Lemley, 1999)

Synesthesia is a term that is common in literature, even by authors who don’t have the neurological condition of synesthesia. Literary synesthesia is defined as “a writer’s use of a metaphor of the senses”(O'Malley) , and is not always related to clinical and diagnosed synesthesia. A definitional distinction defines synesthetic experiences as either intersense analogy or clinical synesthesia. Only clinical synesthesia is the involuntary dual sensation.

In literature, synesthesia is often used as a symbol of pathology, showing that a character has gone through some traumatic brain injury and has come out experiencing the world differently in many different ways. (Wikipedia) Synesthesia is an easily described way of showing how a person sees the world in a completely different way than what is perceived as “normal.” In this way, synesthesia can show how a person has gone through some mind-altering brain damage.

Artists:

David Hockney

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• A quote about Hockney: "Hockney's photo-collages call attention to the human tendency toward selective perception. We focus on parts and pieces, we hear patterns in the iPod's random shuffle, and our mind "half creates what the eye perceives." (Lemley, 1999)
• A quote from Hockney: "When it came time to paint the tree for Ravel, I put on the tree music from the opera, and it had a certain weight and color. The music would dictate the shape." (as cited in Lemley, 1999)

Wassily Kandinsky

Was a Russian painter, whose synesthesia was debatable.

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Wassily Kandinsky was a Russian painter, whose synesthesia was debatable. That Kandinsky’s synesthesia was debatable shows how hard it is to test for it, and calls into question the idea of artists as seing the world differently. No one knows if Kandinsky got his ideas from his synesthesia or not. Either way, one could say that he paints what he perceives.