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Making Sense of Sound

A diagram explaining various properties of sound

What does sound look like? How might it be visually represented? Can it be explained in a scientific diagram? This gallery seeks to explore these questions by examining the form and significance of the ways in which the Romantic period sought to incorporate the ephemeral, ineffable, and invisible element of sound into the visual register. Beginning with an anatomical depiction of the ear and its various parts, this gallery traces the new scientific developments assisting Romantic scientists in understanding how the ear itself functioned. Ultimately, the gallery attempts to unpack the primacy of the visual as a means of understanding the aural, moving towards an understanding of these depictions of the aural as archival elements that encourage us to both challenge the primacy of sight and look beyond it. The gallery links images from scientific and medical texts, caricatures, and poetic descriptions, exploring both literal and tropic uses of music in the Romantic period. In seeking to limn the ways in which music and sound functioned in the Romantic imagination, the gallery also looks at the social and gendered uses of music, articulating differences between harmony and harmonics that asked contemporary readers to rethink preconceptions about the performance and interpretation of music.

Date Published

Date Published
August 2023

Exhibit Items

A young couple play musical instruments together

James Gillray

This image depicts courtship as typically conceived by the Romantic imagination, as a moment of finding or establishing figurative harmony; such a moment or situation was dependent on the prior, elegant education of young ladies in certain, socially-mediating arts.

Harmony Before Matrimony

A loud living room scene

James Gillray

This image depicts the failure of harmony in the marriage previously represented (in its partner print) as a harmonious courtship.

Matrimonial--Harmonics

A diagram explaining various properties of sound


In collaboration with Thomas Young

Using mathematical techniques, this image visually depicts aural phenomena: the sound waves produced by playing an octave. The image uses scientific diagrams to depict sound waves and vibrational patterns.

Outlines of Experiments and Inquiries Respecting Sound and Light, Plate VI

A diagram explaining octave and variant systems of tuning


In collaboration with Thomas Young

This image depicts an octave as rendered differently by each temperament. Young particularly emphasizes circumference Y, which represents the system that Young found most effective: twelve-tone equal temperament.

Outlines of Experiments and Inquiries Respecting Sound and Light, Plate VII

A diagram depicting an Aeolian harp

John Lodge

This image visually depicts the working of sound using the Aeolian harp—an instrument significant to the Romantic imagination—as the primary model. The engraving also includes several scientific diagrams indicating how the harp might function.

Physiological Disquisitions, Plate IV

A diagram of an ear

The series of plates given in this gallery depicts the ear and how it works. This image, Plate 13 of Bell's illustrations, depicts the ear without the skin. The numbers and their labels are given below: A: the helix B: the unnamed cavity

The Organs of the Senses Familiarly Described, Plate 13

A diagram of the inner ear

The series of plates given in this gallery depicts the ear and how it works. This image, Plate 16 of Bell's illustrations, depicts the inner ear. Bell describes it as such: "These are the mastoid cells.

The Organs of the Senses Familiarly Described, Plate 16

A diagram of the small bones of the ear

The series of plates given in this gallery depicts the ear and how it works. This image, Plate 17 of Bell's illustrations, depicts the three small bones of the ear. Bell describes it as such:

The Organs of the Senses Familiarly Described, Plate 17

A diagram of the canals of the ear

The series of plates given in this gallery depicts the ear and how it works. This image, Plate 18 of Bell's illustrations, depicts the semicircular canals of the ear. Bell further describes the image: "The cochlea is named by its similitude to the shell of a snail.

The Organs of the Senses Familiarly Described, Plate 18

A diagram depicting "vibrations in solid bodies"

This scientific diagrams depicts "vibrations in solid bodies," including rods and plates. In the image, Herschel presents readers with another set of experiments that helps them conceptualize the movement of sound through space, again depending on the visual.

Treatise on Sound, Plate 3

Exhibit Tags

Exhibit Tags
sound

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