developed in 1922 by Thomas Wilfred at a cost of over $16,000. Wilfred completely rejected theories that presumed correspondence between light and sound. Light alone was the principal feature of a new art form he named `Lumia'. It is true that Van Deering Perrine, the noted American painter and friend of Isadora Duncan, had experimented with various color-instruments around 1912—and he may have been the first to reject the direct allusion to music—but Wilfred was able to develop the full implications of pure light manipulation. He considered the term 'color-music' a metaphor; yet his art resembled music by including factors of time and rhythm in live performance.
Wilfred first used light in a purely abstract manner, but he later decided form and movement were essential. These he achieved via filters which permitted the projection of moving geometrical shapes onto a screen. Kandinsky's theory that geometrical patterns supplement non-objective use of color possibly influenced Wilfred's work.
Although the first of several instruments had been partially completed in 1919, the Clavilux was introduced to the public on 10 January 1922 in New York after more than a decade of experimentation. Wilfred's main instrument, employing six projectors, was controlled from a `keyboard' consisting of banks of sliders (Fig. 8a). An elaborate arrangement of prisms could be inclined or twisted in any plane in front of each light source. Color intensity was varied by six separate rheostats which Wilfred operated delicately with his fingers. Selection of geometric patterns was effected via an ingenious system of counterbalanced disks. His shifting light performances have been compared by many to the beautiful display of the Aurora Borealis (see Fig. 8b).
During 1924 and 1925, Wilfred gave an extensive recital tour throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. The late Percival Price once told me about a Clavilux recital (5 January 1925) he had attended in Toronto: "Before the concert there seemed to be an attitude of snobbery toward the new art, but after Wilfred began to perform everyone was spellbound." Nearly all of the published reviews substantiate this conclusion, and the critics' difficulty in finding the right words to describe the effect of the performance is evident. Deems Taylor, for example, wrote:
The fact that Thomas Wilfred's Clavilux is commonly known as the color-organ is not the only reason why a music reviewer should have attended his recital last night in Aeolian Hall. For
this new color-art might very aptly be called music for the eye…it is color and light and form and motion, but it is not painting, nor sculpture, nor pantomime. It is difficult to convey in words. Describing the Clavilux to one who has not seen it is like describing an orange to an Esquimo [25].
Wilfred notated his compositions, and they were given opus numbers like musical works. The most enthusiasm seems to have been generated by A Fairy Tale of the Orient (Opus 30). A writer for the Louisville Times (20 November 1924) described the work as "an Arabian night of color, gorgeous, raging, rioting color yet not rioting either…Jewels were poured out of invisible cornucopias; lances of light darted across the screen to penetrate shields of scarlet or green or purple". In the Manchester Guardian (18 May 1925), another reviewer described Wilfred's work as a dream of "some unearthly aquarium where strange creatures float and writhe, and where a vegetation of supernatural loveliness grows visibly before the spectator". From the reports, it seems that Wilfred's art probably surpassed the dramatic effects produced by today's laser performances, especially since his audiences had never witnessed anything like it before. Although most of Wilfred's recitals were presented in complete silence, he also took part in collaborative performances where music was interpreted in colored light. For example in 1926 he collaborated in a presentation of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade with the Philadelphia orchestra directed by Leopold Stokowski [26].
VI. CONCLUSION
In the decades following Wilfred's introduction of the Clavilux, many artists experimented with the technique of interpreting music in colored light. George Hall, for example, built a device in the 1930s which he called the Musichrome. It was equipped with eight keys to control two sets of four colors each. In a brochure about his instrument, Hall indicated no set rules to follow when interpreting musical compositions: "The accompanist must follow his own color reactions to the music played. Generally speaking, heavy, loud, thunderous music calls for the use of red, although there are times when an intense blue is desirable" [27].
Frederick Bentham gave performances on a Light Console at the Strand Electric Demonstration Theatre in London shortly before World War II (Fig. 9). At his concerts, he accompanied phonograph recordings of many works including Pictures at an Exhibition, The Firebird,
and Prometheus. Describing a presentation of Scriabin's color-symphony on 31 March 1937, Bentham wrote:
The first snag was that I could not feel in accord with the music (I wonder what my present day impression would be) and the second was the difficulty of looking at the score at the same time as keeping my eyes glued to the stage. A colour organist who does not do the latter is equivalent to the musician who plays without listening to himself....After some rehearsal the ordered sequence of colour changes was extracted but…in the end I took the colours as an organist might take a simple theme for improvisation and let myself go to the music [28].
Extensive technical innovation after World War II made possible the permanent installation of a large number of `color-organs' in theaters and galleries all over the world. These instruments either were operated live or were programmed to present light sculptures. One such work, Wilfred's Lumia Suite (Opus 158), was displayed during the late 1960s in the New York Museum of Modern Art. For two decades (and until recently), the engineer and lighting designer Christian Sidenius gave performances of colored light with music at his private installation in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. His elaborate equipment included stereopticon color-projectors, and he called his concerts "Lumia, the Theatre of Light" in honor of Wilfred's original Lumia Theatre of New York.
Within the past 15 years, the decreasing cost of technology has fired a revival of interest in the practical development of instruments to perform color-music. One result has been that today's consumers of both art and entertainment events have come to expect that their aesthetic experiences will be generated by mixed-media, often including colored light and sound. Annual summer concerts of sound with lighting are presented in Paris; and in the Soviet Union, a large organization under the direction of Bulat Galeyev has constructed color-instruments that have been used to present huge outdoor spectacles of sound and light which are attended by thousands [29]. In the United States and Europe, many color-music concerts of more modest attendance have been presented by various groups. And audiences in our multi-media age have responded enthusiastically to this veritable explosion of activity. Enterprises such as Laser Images Incorporated, for example, have toured colleges in the midwestern United States with portable color instruments for live performances. Repertoires accompanied by colored light have included rock music as well as music by
Results (
Thai) 1:
[Copy]Copied!
พัฒนาในค.ศ. 1922 โดย Thomas การวิลเฟรดที่ต้นทุนมากกว่า $16000 การวิลเฟรดปฏิเสธทฤษฎีที่ presumed ติดต่อระหว่างแสงสว่างและเสียงอย่างสมบูรณ์ ไฟคนเดียวถูกคุณลักษณะหลักของรูปแบบศิลปะใหม่ เขามีชื่อว่า 'หิมะ' มันเป็นความจริงว่า Perrine Deering Van จิตรกรตามอเมริกันและเพื่อนของ Isadora ดันแคน มีเบื้อง มีสีต่าง ๆ เครื่องซาวน่าประมาณ — และเขาอาจถูกปฏิเสธเอ่ยถึงตรงเพลงแรก — แต่การวิลเฟรดสามารถพัฒนาผลกระทบของแสงจัดการบริสุทธิ์เต็ม เขาถือว่าคำว่า 'สีเพลง' อุปมัย แต่ ศิลปะของเขาคล้ายกับเพลง โดยรวมปัจจัยเวลาและจังหวะในผลงานการวิลเฟรดครั้งแรกใช้ไฟในลักษณะนามธรรมเพียงอย่างเดียว แต่เขาภายหลังตัดสินใจฟอร์มและเคลื่อนไหวสำคัญ นี่เขาทำผ่านตัวกรองซึ่งได้ฉายภาพของการย้ายรูปร่าง geometrical บนหน้าจอ ทฤษฎีของ Kandinsky ว่า รูป geometrical เสริมใช้สีไม่ใช่วัตถุประสงค์อาจจะมีอิทธิพลต่องานของการวิลเฟรดAlthough the first of several instruments had been partially completed in 1919, the Clavilux was introduced to the public on 10 January 1922 in New York after more than a decade of experimentation. Wilfred's main instrument, employing six projectors, was controlled from a `keyboard' consisting of banks of sliders (Fig. 8a). An elaborate arrangement of prisms could be inclined or twisted in any plane in front of each light source. Color intensity was varied by six separate rheostats which Wilfred operated delicately with his fingers. Selection of geometric patterns was effected via an ingenious system of counterbalanced disks. His shifting light performances have been compared by many to the beautiful display of the Aurora Borealis (see Fig. 8b).During 1924 and 1925, Wilfred gave an extensive recital tour throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. The late Percival Price once told me about a Clavilux recital (5 January 1925) he had attended in Toronto: "Before the concert there seemed to be an attitude of snobbery toward the new art, but after Wilfred began to perform everyone was spellbound." Nearly all of the published reviews substantiate this conclusion, and the critics' difficulty in finding the right words to describe the effect of the performance is evident. Deems Taylor, for example, wrote:The fact that Thomas Wilfred's Clavilux is commonly known as the color-organ is not the only reason why a music reviewer should have attended his recital last night in Aeolian Hall. Forthis new color-art might very aptly be called music for the eye…it is color and light and form and motion, but it is not painting, nor sculpture, nor pantomime. It is difficult to convey in words. Describing the Clavilux to one who has not seen it is like describing an orange to an Esquimo [25].Wilfred notated his compositions, and they were given opus numbers like musical works. The most enthusiasm seems to have been generated by A Fairy Tale of the Orient (Opus 30). A writer for the Louisville Times (20 November 1924) described the work as "an Arabian night of color, gorgeous, raging, rioting color yet not rioting either…Jewels were poured out of invisible cornucopias; lances of light darted across the screen to penetrate shields of scarlet or green or purple". In the Manchester Guardian (18 May 1925), another reviewer described Wilfred's work as a dream of "some unearthly aquarium where strange creatures float and writhe, and where a vegetation of supernatural loveliness grows visibly before the spectator". From the reports, it seems that Wilfred's art probably surpassed the dramatic effects produced by today's laser performances, especially since his audiences had never witnessed anything like it before. Although most of Wilfred's recitals were presented in complete silence, he also took part in collaborative performances where music was interpreted in colored light. For example in 1926 he collaborated in a presentation of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade with the Philadelphia orchestra directed by Leopold Stokowski [26].VI. CONCLUSIONIn the decades following Wilfred's introduction of the Clavilux, many artists experimented with the technique of interpreting music in colored light. George Hall, for example, built a device in the 1930s which he called the Musichrome. It was equipped with eight keys to control two sets of four colors each. In a brochure about his instrument, Hall indicated no set rules to follow when interpreting musical compositions: "The accompanist must follow his own color reactions to the music played. Generally speaking, heavy, loud, thunderous music calls for the use of red, although there are times when an intense blue is desirable" [27].Frederick Bentham gave performances on a Light Console at the Strand Electric Demonstration Theatre in London shortly before World War II (Fig. 9). At his concerts, he accompanied phonograph recordings of many works including Pictures at an Exhibition, The Firebird,and Prometheus. Describing a presentation of Scriabin's color-symphony on 31 March 1937, Bentham wrote:The first snag was that I could not feel in accord with the music (I wonder what my present day impression would be) and the second was the difficulty of looking at the score at the same time as keeping my eyes glued to the stage. A colour organist who does not do the latter is equivalent to the musician who plays without listening to himself....After some rehearsal the ordered sequence of colour changes was extracted but…in the end I took the colours as an organist might take a simple theme for improvisation and let myself go to the music [28].Extensive technical innovation after World War II made possible the permanent installation of a large number of `color-organs' in theaters and galleries all over the world. These instruments either were operated live or were programmed to present light sculptures. One such work, Wilfred's Lumia Suite (Opus 158), was displayed during the late 1960s in the New York Museum of Modern Art. For two decades (and until recently), the engineer and lighting designer Christian Sidenius gave performances of colored light with music at his private installation in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. His elaborate equipment included stereopticon color-projectors, and he called his concerts "Lumia, the Theatre of Light" in honor of Wilfred's original Lumia Theatre of New York.Within the past 15 years, the decreasing cost of technology has fired a revival of interest in the practical development of instruments to perform color-music. One result has been that today's consumers of both art and entertainment events have come to expect that their aesthetic experiences will be generated by mixed-media, often including colored light and sound. Annual summer concerts of sound with lighting are presented in Paris; and in the Soviet Union, a large organization under the direction of Bulat Galeyev has constructed color-instruments that have been used to present huge outdoor spectacles of sound and light which are attended by thousands [29]. In the United States and Europe, many color-music concerts of more modest attendance have been presented by various groups. And audiences in our multi-media age have responded enthusiastically to this veritable explosion of activity. Enterprises such as Laser Images Incorporated, for example, have toured colleges in the midwestern United States with portable color instruments for live performances. Repertoires accompanied by colored light have included rock music as well as music by
Being translated, please wait..
