An
Experimental Essay on the Interaction of Color, Music and Aromatics in Formulation
of Theory based on Indian Aesthetics
This essay is an experimental inquiry into the
interaction of color, music, and aromatics within the formulation of a theory
rooted in Indian aesthetics. Yehudi Menuhin, the noted violinist, in an article
from The Times of India, April, 15, 1953, remarked on the aesthetics of the
‘Indian listener’ as a person ‘who can
appreciate twenty different shades of blue, and twenty different shades of red’.
Such sensitivity gestures toward a refined perception, where nuance is felt
across domains.
Interestingly, we refer to the term “note” in
discussing aromatics, even as “note” remains fundamental to musical theory.
This shared language invites a deeper exploration. In this essay, I attempt an
experimental interaction between Indian classical musical theory, color theory,
and the primary classifications in aromatics, in order to arrive at a possible
understanding of blending. In this essay I explore on an experimental
interaction between Indian classical musical theory, color theory and the
interaction with the primary classification in aromatics to arrive at a
possible theory of blending.
The Hindustani system of Classical music attaches
particular relevance to time of a day or a season in which a particular Raga is
sung, in the belief that the human state of psyche is affected by the seasons,
by daily biological cycles and nature’s rhythms, while the South Indian or the
Carnatic system places less emphasis on the same. Within the system of Carnatic
music, you have a classification of ragas based on the Melakarta system which
is technical, in nature and has not been discussed in this paper but in
limitation to a few egsamples.
Within the Indian or Oriental school of painting exists the tradition of
Ragamala. A raga, in performance, is a process—a movement, always in flow. To
visualize it as a painting is to attempt to hold it still, to arrest it at a
point in its unfolding—perhaps at its acme. But how is such a moment chosen?
And what happens when ragas are strung together into a mala, a
garland—each following the other in sequence? How does one render not just a
moment, but a continuum of becoming?
The symphony of a raga’s birth is intricately linked to human emotion. As
emotions carry within them a multitude of shades, so too do they find
expression in color. Each emotion evokes an ambience; each ambience, in turn,
inspires poetry in the poet and a canvas in the artist.
If such correspondences exist between sound and color, where then do we
place scent? In the world of aromatics, where notes unfold in layers—top, heart,
and base—can there be an echo of the raga’s progression? Can fragrance, like
music, move, linger, resolve?
In this paper, I share a series of personal experiments as an exploration
into this confluence—toward a space where sound, color, and scent do not remain
isolated, but begin to speak to one another, in subtle and shifting harmonies,
within the sanctity of experience.
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