- Louis Bertrand Castel
Louis Bertrand Castel (
15 November 1688 –9 January 1757 ) was a Frenchmathematician born inMontpellier , and entered the order of theJesuits in 1703. Having studied literature, he afterwards devoted himself entirely tomathematics and naturalphilosophy . He wrote several scientific works, that which attracted most attention at the time being his "Optique des couleurs" (1740), or treatise on the melody of colors. He also wrote "Traité de physique sur la pesanteur universelle des corps" (1724), "Mathématique universelle" (1728), and a critical account of the system ofSir Isaac Newton in 1743.Work in Optics
It was in 1740 that
Louis Bertrand Castel published a criticism of Newton's spectral description of prismatic colour [cite book | title = L'Optique des couleurs | publisher = Paris | year = 1740 | author = Louis-Bertrand Castel] in which he observed that the colours of white light split by a prism depended on the distance from the prism, and that Newton was looking at a special case. It was an argument that Goethe later developed in hisTheory of Colours . [cite book | title = Instruments and the Imagination | author = Thomas L. Hankins and Robert J. Silverman | publisher = Princeton UniversityPress | year = 1995 | ibsn = 0691005494 | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=O9e_7E22caAC&pg=PA250&lpg=PA250&dq=castel+goethe+colour&source=web&ots=q1NdUXW7z4&sig=N0V8SefvQTAqbF2cLMI3IG84-Q8#PPA83,M1 ]The Ocular Harpsichord
Early on, Castel illustrated his optical theories with a proposal for a "Clavecin pour les yeux" ("Ocular Harpsichord", 1725). While the treatise and the illustration were apparently forgotten, [cite book | title = A New General Biographical Dictionary | author = Hugh James Rose | publisher = London: B. Fellowes, &c | year = 1857 | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=PiMkIyIgKJcC&pg=PA107&dq=%22Ocular+Harpsichord%22+forgotten&as_brr=3&ei=85KFR6WiD4OssgPY-MHQBQ&ie=ISO-8859-1 ] he continually developed the idea. It was soon after the publication of his L'Optiquedes couleurs in the 1740's, that German composer Telemann went to
France to see Castel's Ocular Harpsichord for himself. He ended up composing several pieces for it, and even wrote a book about it.The ocular harpsichord had sixty small coloured glass panes, each with a curtain that opened when a key was struck. A second, improved model of the harpsichord was demonstrated for a small audience in December of 1754. Pressing a key caused a small shaft to open, in turn allowing light to shine through a piece of stained glass. [ [http://www.musictheory21.com/jae-sung/syllabus/graduate/rameau-studies/2002-1/documents/color-and-music.pdf Jae-sung PDF] ] [ [http://homepage.eircom.net/~musima/visualmusic/visualmusic.htm Maura McDonnell, "Visual music".] ] Castel thought of color-music as akin to the lost language of paradise, where all men spoke alike, and he claimed that thanks to his instrument’s capacity to paint sounds, even a deaf listener could enjoy music. [ [http://cabinetmagazine.org/issues/22/peel.php "The Scale and the Spectrum"] James Peel
Cabinet (magazine) , Winter 2006 ]See also
*
Color organ
*Theory of Colours External links
* [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Louis_Bertrand_Castel 1911 Britannica article "Louis Bertrand Castel"]
* [http://www.laweekly.com/general/features/pure-energy/15277 LA Weekly "Laserium" article]References
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