The Poem of Ecstasy

Media: Mixed media

Year: 2011

Collection: The Poem of Ecstasy

Size (H x W): 90cm x 90cm (2 ft 11 ins x 2 ft 11 ins)

Inspired by ‘The Poem of Ecstasy’, the music of Alexander Scriabin.

Although the Poem of Ecstasy is often considered to be influenced by Scriabin’s synaesthesia, a condition wherein one experiences stimulus in one sense in response to real stimulus in another sense, it is most likely Alexander Scriabin did not actually experience the physiological condition of synaesthesia. His colour system, unlike most synaesthetic experience, lines up with the circle of fifths, indicating that it was a thought-out system influenced by his theosophic readings and based on Sir Isaac Newton’s Optics.