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Harmonizing These Two Arts: Edmund Lind’s The Music of Color and its Antecedents
ABSTRACT: Known primarily for his work in Baltimore and elsewhere in the American South, British-born architect Edmund Lind (1829-
1909) was responsible for a diverse range of “revival-style” buildings. Lind’s most famous design, the library of the Peabody Institute, reflects
the eclectic temperament of an architect for whom aesthetic rules and principles were most usefully conceived as expedient tools, applied
as required in the interest of successful professional service.
Towards the end of his life, however, another interest received his increasing attention. Twenty-seven intricately-colored plates
accompanied an essay titled The Music of Color, which explored an analogy between the senses of sight and of sound. Assembled in 1894,
Lind’s writing and illustrations depicted in visual terms the melodies and harmonies of unusual sources, including the music of foreign
cultures and the spoken word. Lind’s representational technique anticipated the graphic experiments of a later generation’s avant-garde,
especially among those art movements founded in the wake of increasing challenges to traditional modes of perception.
Nevertheless, Lind and his enthusiasms remained firmly anchored in a view of art and science drawn from 19th-century sources. Two
particular works, cited by Lind in his essay, represent alternative cross-currents among the many hypothetical links between music and color.
In addition, Lind’s own architectural education in London had occurred at the height of the Victorian-era “design reform” movement, which
sought to revolutionize the visual character of England’s material culture. The reformers’ appeal to abstract structure, as embodied in their
study of botany and quasi-scientific theories of color, was an implicit source of Lind’s later fascination with music’s representation through
visual means.
02/26/10 DRAFT (text+images)
1909) was responsible for a diverse range of “revival-style” buildings. Lind’s most famous design, the library of the Peabody Institute, reflects
the eclectic temperament of an architect for whom aesthetic rules and principles were most usefully conceived as expedient tools, applied
as required in the interest of successful professional service.
Towards the end of his life, however, another interest received his increasing attention. Twenty-seven intricately-colored plates
accompanied an essay titled The Music of Color, which explored an analogy between the senses of sight and of sound. Assembled in 1894,
Lind’s writing and illustrations depicted in visual terms the melodies and harmonies of unusual sources, including the music of foreign
cultures and the spoken word. Lind’s representational technique anticipated the graphic experiments of a later generation’s avant-garde,
especially among those art movements founded in the wake of increasing challenges to traditional modes of perception.
Nevertheless, Lind and his enthusiasms remained firmly anchored in a view of art and science drawn from 19th-century sources. Two
particular works, cited by Lind in his essay, represent alternative cross-currents among the many hypothetical links between music and color.
In addition, Lind’s own architectural education in London had occurred at the height of the Victorian-era “design reform” movement, which
sought to revolutionize the visual character of England’s material culture. The reformers’ appeal to abstract structure, as embodied in their
study of botany and quasi-scientific theories of color, was an implicit source of Lind’s later fascination with music’s representation through
visual means.
02/26/10 DRAFT (text+images)
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