Colormusic

The language of Florian Yuriev

Artist’s works

Colormusic is the art of mapping sound to color created by Florian Yuriev. Yuriev was an architect, composer, artist, and researcher interested in using color and light and exploring their effect. His architectural thinking is based on colormusic – the theory he developed throughout the decades.

The basis of colormusic theory is a system of color tonalities, a system of symbols that maps notes to geometric shapes and colors. The colors in this system follow the 12-step sound scale; they are placed by hue like on a color wheel. The soundscape emerged from Newton's theory and Yuriev's research on the perception of color and sound.

Yuriev often quoted Aristotle that "there is no difference between the perception of music and color." Just like music, color has expressive and communicative functions. It carries symbolic meaning, i.e., red communicates "blood," "life," and "passion,"; as well as has a psychological effect. Every color, according to Yuriev, carries its own energy.

Yuriev applies the principles of colormusic to writing, creating what he calls colorwriting. He created the system of colorwriting, which maps consonants to shapes and vowels to color. This way, Yuriev created color alphabets in three languages – Ukrainian, Russian, and Esperanto.

Yuriev believed it to be a black-and-white method of vocalizing speech that does not communicate the sound of words. The sound, or intonation, is the basis of emotional expression, a predecessor to symbols, words, and speech. Colour writing is a way to map the sound of words and translate their emotional expressiveness to a broader group of people. It reveals the beauty or shortcomings of the spoken word.