Performing art preceding plastic art == OH !! GR8

Favourite locations: Most paintings were drawn near resonant locations.

Professor Iegor Resnikoff of the University of Paris is an expert in acoustics. His specialization is the study of the acoustics of concert halls, auditoria and churches.

The latter are of particular interest because many of them have been planned with great care with respect to their acoustics.

Indeed, when you sit inside a centuries-old church and hear the organ playing, or the chorus singing, you are transported into a world of grand auditory joy.

Recall that in the days the churches were built, we had no microphones, amplifiers or even electricity. Yet the resonance of the building and the space within the prayer hall is so perfect that when you sit there and hear a composition by Bachthe experience is thrilling.

Professor Resnikoff has recently turned his attention to the acoustics of not just church halls, but the caves that Stone Age man lived in and used. He presented his results at a recent professional gathering of European and American acoustics experts. Writing about it, Ms. Jennifer Viegas says that he reports that when he visited prehistoric (12,000 years old) caves in some parts of France, he was struck by the paintings on the walls.

But he also wondered why these were drawn on certain locations in the cave and not others. Most pictures were placed in clusters around certain places, while elsewhere there were red lines — all drawn by the cave men (and not any latter day graffiti). Why?

Viegas quotes him as saying: “The first time I happened to be in a prehistoric cave, I tried the resonance in various parts of the cave, and quickly the question rose: Is there a relationship between resonance and locations of these paintings?”

Resonant locations

Puzzled, he did some sound checks, by humming and singing at various parts of the caves. He found that most paintings were drawn near resonant locations. The better the resonance at a location, the more the number of paintings on the wall around that area.

Where resonance was poor, as in narrow passageways, there were no paintings but just red lines. Did cavemen first check out zones within the caves for their sound quality, and then choose where to paint and where not, asks Ms. Viegas. If yes, it would suggest that rock painting was inspired by rock music (the pun is accidental).

Music came first and determined where the painting should be, so that there is maximal, synergistic effect. Performing art preceding plastic art in Paleolithic people?

That we are moved by musical resonances is well known. It does not just have to be listening to an oratorio in a church.

The simple act of listening to a well-tuned tanpura could be pleasing. And when we hear Smt. N. Rajam on the violin, accompanied by Ustad Zakir Husain on the tabla, playing Raga Gorakh Kalyan, we can go into a trance. Yet, we know little about the science of musical resonance, and the factors that govern it. Acoustical engineers are thus like architects — in part scientists and in part artists. The field itself is in part empirical and experimental. The word used in such context is heuristic.

Some of the best violins in the world were made by the 17th century Italian Antonio Stradivari. What made them the best is still an unsolved puzzle. The latest clue appears to the density of the wood chosen to make them. Could well be, since Indian musicians say that the best tanpuras are made in the Miraj-Sangli area of Maharashtra. The gourd or pumpkin shells used there appear to be of a special, unique, variety.

And Pandit Ravi Shankar admired Shri Nodu Mullick, who made some of the best sitars. Called the Stradivari of sitars, he seemed to have made no more than 36 of them, each a prized possession. The key appears to be the resonance generated by the materials used to make these instruments.

It does not have to be wood or plant products alone. Even hollow stones and bones, when chosen and worked upon, generate remarkable resonances.

The musical pillars of Meenakshi Temple at Madurai, or at Hampi bear testimony to this plasticity aspect of rock. Going way back to the Neanderthal age, the Croatian/Slovenian flute of 50,000 years ago was made of a hollowed out bone.

We seem to be able to make music out of any material available near by — the Jamaicans use tin cans, aluminium lids, leather, soda bottle tops and produce lilting music. Jennifer Viegas concludes her report of the Resnikoff study on cave paintings as: “It is possible that all of music could have resulted from an ingrained human memory of the acoustics of caves”.

But the more striking result of Resnikoff is that painting was inspired by music. What kind of music did the Stone People create, and what themes would it have evoked in their paintings — hunting? war? Grandeur of the animals around? The prehistoric caves of Adamgad and of Bhimbetka in Madhya Pradesh would be worth studying for their sound resonances, since they too have several paintings on their walls.

Are these paintings different in content and themes than those in France? Do the sounds here differ from there? This would be of interest to a musician with a flair for archaeology.

Music and painting

There are some contemporary examples of combining music and painting; these turn out to be no value. The duet of Bhimsen Joshi singing and M.F. Husain painting on the same stage was more of a gimmick.

Perhaps someone should study the interiors of the Tanjore and Rameswaram temples, and the sculptures around the musical pillars of Hampi and Madurai, and study what kinds of images (non-devotional of course) are found there, and what themes they have.