Essay on the Creative Imagination Part 24

FOOTNOTES:

[162] See above, Part One, Chapter IV.

[163] Those who, not having the courage to read the 575 pages of Froschammer's book, want more details, may profitably consult the excellent a.n.a.lysis that Seailles has given (_Rev. Philos._, March, 1878, pp. 198-220). See also Ambrosi, _Psicologia dell'

immagin.a.z.ione nella storia della filosofia_, pp. 472-498.

[164] See above, Part II, chapter IV.

APPENDIX D

EVIDENCE IN REGARD TO MUSICAL IMAGINATION[165]

The question asked above,[166] Does the experiencing of purely musical sounds evoke images, universally, and of what nature and under what conditions? seemed to me to enter a more general field--the affective imagination--which I intend to study elsewhere in a special work. For the time being I limit myself to observations and information that I have gathered, picking from them several that I give here for the sake of shedding light on the question. I give first the replies of musicians; then, those of non-musicians.

1. M. Lionel Dauriac writes me: "The question that you ask me is complex. I am not a 'visualizer;' I have infrequent hypnagogic hallucinations, and they are all of the auditory type.

"... Symphonic music aroused in me no image of the visual type while I remained the amateur that you knew from 1876 to 1898. When that amateur began to reflect methodically on the art of his taste, he recognized in music a power of suggesting:

"1. Sonorous, non-musical images--thunder, clock. Example, the overture of _William Tell_.

"2. Psychic images--suggestion of a mental state--anger, love, religious feeling.

"3. Visual images, whether following upon the psychic image or through the intermediation of a programme.

"Under what condition, in a symphonic work, is the visual image, introduced by the psychic image, produced? In the event of a break in the melodic web (see my _Psychologie dans l'Opera_, pp. 119-120). Here are given, without orderly arrangement, some of the ideas that have come to me:

"Beethoven's _symphony in C major_ appears to me purely musical--it is of a sonorous design. The _symphony in D major_ (the second) suggests to me visual-motor images--I set a ballet to the first part and keep track altogether of the ballet that I picture. The _Heroic Symphony_ (aside from the funeral march, the meaning of which is indicated in the t.i.tle) suggests to me images of a military character, ever since the time that I noticed that the fundamental theme of the first portion is based on notes of perfect harmony--trumpet-notes and, by a.s.sociation, military.

The _finale_ of this symphony, which I consider superior to other parts, does not cause me to see anything. _Symphony in B flat major_--I see nothing there--this may be said without qualification. _Symphony in C minor_--it is dramatic, although the melodic web is never broken. The first part suggests the image, not of Fate knocking at the gate, as Beethoven said, but of a soul overcome with the crises of revolt, accompanied by a hope of victory. Visual images do not come except as brought by psychic images."

F. G., a musician, always sees--that is the rule, notably in the _Pastoral_, and in the _Heroic Symphony_. In Bach's _Pa.s.sion_ he beholds the scene of the mystic lamb.

A composer writes me: "When I compose or play music of my own composition I behold dancing figures; I see an orchestra, an audience, etc. When I listen to or play music by another composer I do not see anything." This communication also mentions three other musicians who see nothing.

2. D......, so little of a musician that I had some trouble to make him understand the term "symphonic music," never goes to concerts. However, he went once, fifteen years ago, and there remains in his memory very clearly the princ.i.p.al phrase of a minuet (he hums it)--he cannot recall it without seeing people dancing a minuet.

M. O. L...... has been kind enough to question in my behalf sixteen non-musical persons. Here are the results of his inquiry:

Eight see curved lines.

Three see images, figures springing in the air, fantastic designs.

Two see the waves of the ocean.

Three do not see anything.

FOOTNOTES:

[165] See Part Three, Chapter II.

[166] _Ibid._, IV.

APPENDIX E

THE IMAGINATIVE TYPE AND a.s.sOCIATION OF IDEAS[167]

I have questioned a very great number of imaginative persons, well known to me as such, and have chosen preferably those who, not making a profession of creating, let their fancy wander as it wills, without professional care. In all the mechanism is the same, differing scarcely more than temperament and degree of culture. Here are two examples.

B......, forty-six years of age, is acquainted with a large part of Europe, North America, Oceania, Hindoostan, Indo-China, and North Africa, and has not pa.s.sed through these countries on the run, but, because of his duties, resided there some time. It is worthy of remark, as will be seen from the following observation, that the remembrance of such various countries does not have first place in this brilliant, fanciful personage--which fact is an argument in favor of the very personal character of the creative imagination.

"In a general way, imagination, very lively in me, functions by a.s.sociation of ideas. Memory or the outer world furnishes me some data.

On this data there is not always, though there should be, imaginative work proper, and then things remain as they are, without end.

"But when I meet a construction--it matters little whether ancient or in the course of erection--the formula, 'That ought to be fixed,' is one that rises mechanically to my mind in such a case; often it happens that I think aloud and say it, although alone. When going away from the architectural subject[168] under consideration, I make up infinite variations upon it, one after another. Sometimes the things start from a reflex...."

After having noted his preference for the architecture of the Middle Ages, B...... adds (here he touches on the unconscious factor):

"Were I to explain or attempt to explain how the Middle Ages have such an attraction for my mind, I should see therein an atavistic acc.u.mulation of religious feeling fixed in my family, on the female side no doubt, and of religiousness in ecclesiastical architecture--these touch.

"Another example ill.u.s.trating the role of a.s.sociation of ideas in the same matter. One Sunday night I left Noumea in the carriage of Dr.

F...... who was going to visit a nunnery five leagues from there. At the moment of our arrival the doctor asked what time it was. 'Half-past two,' I said, looking at my watch. As we stopped in the convent court in front of the chapel I _heard_ the l.u.s.ty conclusion of a psalm. 'They are singing vespers,' I remarked to the doctor. He commenced to laugh.

'What time are vespers sung in your town?' 'At half-past two,' I answered. I opened the chapel door in order to show the doctor that vespers had just been held: the chapel was vacant. As I stood there, somewhat non-plussed, the doctor remarked, 'Cerebral automatism.'

"I may add here, _by a.s.sociation_ of ideas. The doctor had seen through me, and had with fine insight perceived _why_ I had _heard_ the end of the psalm. The incident made a great impression on me, all the more as ever since the age of eight my memory testifies to a like hallucination, but of sight in place of hearing. It was at L...... that on Good Friday they rang at the cathedral with all their might. It was the very moment before the bells remain silent for three days, and it is known that this silence, ordained in the liturgy, is explained to children by telling them that during these two days the bells have flown to Rome. Naturally I was treated to this little tale, and as they finished telling it, I _saw_ a bell flying at an angle that I could still describe.

"But this transforming power of my imagination is not present in me to the same extent as regards all things. It is much more operative in relation to Romano-Gothic architecture, mystic literature, and sociological knowledge than in relation, for instance, to my memories of travels. When I see again, in the mind's eye, the Isle of Bourbon, Niagara, Tahiti, Calcutta, Melbourne, the Pyramids and the Sphinx, the graphic representation is intellectually perfect. The objects live again in all their external surroundings. I feel the _Khamsinn_, the desert wind that scorched me at the foot of Pompey's Column; I hear the sea breaking into foam on the barrier reef of Tahiti. But the image does not lead to evocation of related or parallel ideas.

"When, on the other hand, I take a walk over the Comburg moor, the castle weighs upon me in all its ma.s.siveness; the recollections of the _Memoires d'Outre-tombe_ besiege me like living pictures. I see, like Chateaubriand himself, the family of great famished lords in their feudal castle. With Chateaubriand I return in the twinkling of an eye to the Niagara that we have both seen. In the fall of the waters I find the deep and melancholy note that he himself found; and after that I think of that dark cathedral of Dol that evidently suggested to the author his _Genie du Christianisme_.

"In literature, things are very unequally suggestive to me. Cla.s.sic literature has only few paths outwards for me--Tacitus, Lucretius, Juvenal, Homer, and Saint-Simon excepted. I read the other authors of this cla.s.s partly for themselves, without making a comparison. On the other hand, the reading of Dante, Shakespeare, St. Jerome's compact verses on the Hebrew, and Middle Age prose excites within me a whole world of ideas, like Wagner's music, _canto-fermo_, and Beethoven.

Certain things form a link for me from one order of ideas to another.

For example, Michaelangelo and the Bible, Rembrandt and Balzac, Puvis de Chavannes and the Merovingian narratives.

"To sum up: There are in me certain _milieux_ especially favorable to imagination. When any circ.u.mstance brings me into one of them, it is rare that an imaginative network does not occur; and, if one is produced, a.s.sociation of ideas will perform the work. When I give myself up to serious work, I have to mistrust myself: and in this connection I shall surprise people when I say that in the cla.s.s of ideas above indicated the subject exciting the most ideas in me is sociology."

M......, sixty years of age, artistic temperament. Because of the necessities of life, he has followed a profession entirely opposite to his bent. He has given me his "confession" in the form of fragmentary notes made day by day. Many are _moral_ remarks on the subject of his imagination--I leave them out. I note especially the unconquerable tendency to make up little romances and some details in regard to visual representation, and a dislike for numbers.

"It happens that I experience sharp regret when I see the photograph of a monument, e.g., the Pantheon, the proportions of which I have constructed according to the descriptions of the monument and the idea that I had of the life of the Greeks. The photograph mars my dream.

"From the seen to the unknown. In the S. G. library. A slender young woman, smartly dressed--spotless black gloves--between her fingers a small pencil and a tiny note-book. What business has this affectation this morning in a cla.s.sic and dull building, in a common environment of poor workmen? She is not a servant-maid, and not a teacher. Now for the solution of the unknown. I follow the woman to her family, into her home, and it is quite a task.

"In the same library. I want to get an address from the _Almanach Bottin_. A young man, perhaps a student, has borrowed the ridiculous volume. Bent over it, his hands in his hair, he turns the leaves with the sage leisure of a scholar looking for a commentary. From the empty dictionary he often draws out a letter. He must have received this letter this morning from the country. His family advises him to apply to so-and-so. It is a question of money and employment. He must locate the people who, provincial ignorance said, are near him. And so goes the wandering imagination.