Nanopublication — Chromesthetic Translation of the Ab Major Triad

Claim 1: Chromesthetic Translation of the Ab Major Triad
I translate the Ab Major [1] triad — Ab, C, Eb — into my chromesthetic color associations: Ab appears as blue, C as red, and Eb as blue-violet. In this first variation, the two blue-family tones (Ab and Eb) dominate the composition at over 70% combined surface area, while C manifests as a concentrated red-orange accent at approximately 2.5%. The resulting palette is overwhelmingly cool, reflecting the harmonic character of Ab Major as I perceive it synesthetically.
Context
Ab Major is a chord dominated by cool tones in my chromesthetic system. Both the root (Ab) and the fifth (Eb) fall within the blue family on the circle of fifths to color wheel mapping, while only the major third (C) breaks warm as red. This creates an unusual situation among the major triads: two of three chord tones share a color family, producing a composition where the harmonic identity reads as fundamentally cool with a single warm punctuation.
The k-means computational analysis of this painting confirms the perceptual read. Blue accounts for 46.1% of the surface, blue-violet for 24.6%, and violet for 26.8%, while red-orange registers at just 2.5%. The temperature bias measured at -0.68 (strongly cool) corroborates what the eye sees immediately: this is a blue painting with a red spot. That concentration of the C tone into a small, vivid area — rather than distributing it broadly — reflects how I hear the third within the chord: present, essential to the major quality, but not dominant.
This is the first variation I painted in the Ab Major key within the Research on Harmony series. As a first approach to this harmonic material, it establishes the baseline chromesthetic character of the chord before subsequent variations explore alternative spatial arrangements and tonal balances.
References
[1] Arnaud Quercy (2024). Ab Major - Research on Harmony - Variation 1 — Catalog raisonné. https://arnaudquercy.art/en/catalogue-raisonne/AQC0608.html
[2] Quercy, A. (2025). ORCID https://orcid.org/0009-0000-2662-7790
[3] Quercy, A. (2024). Ab Major - Research on Harmony - Variation 1 (AQC0608). Synesthetic Explorations collection. https://artquamanima.com/en/artworks/2024/06/ab-major-research-on-harmony-variation-1_6so.html
Where this work lives
- Series: Ab Major
- Collection: Synesthetic Explorations
- Technique: Acrylic
Exhibitions
- Salon d'art contemporain – Metamorphose, Paris (2024-12-26 → 2025-01-05, Halle des Blancs Manteaux, Paris)
- Permanent Collection 2025 – Resonance in Form (2025-01-01 → 2025-12-31, arnaudquercy.art, Paris)
- Paris Studio Visit (2025-02-18 → 2025-02-18, Artist's Studio, Paris)
- Marché d'Art Contemporain – Seine Port (2025-05-17 → 2025-05-17, MAC Seine-Port, Seine-Port)
- Nuit des Artistes, St Germain-en-Laye, France (2025-05-24 → 2025-05-24, La Nuit des Artistes, Saint-Germain-en-Laye)
- Marché de l'Art de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 17ème édition – France (2025-06-14 → 2025-06-14, Marché de l'Art, Saint-Germain-en-Laye)
- Salon d'art contemporain – Metamorphose 2025–2026, Paris (2025-12-26 → 2026-01-04, Halle des Blancs Manteaux, Paris)
- Art Quam Anima – Pre-opening (2026-01-31 → 2026-02-28, Art Quam Anima, Paris)
- Through the Aperture — Research on Harmony (2026-03-09 → 2026-05-30, Art Quam Anima, Paris)
Other works in this series
- Ab Major - Reflexions 3
- Ab Major - Research on Harmony
- Ab Major - Research on Harmony - Variation 2
- Ab Major - Research on Harmony - Variation 3
- Ab Major - Research on Harmony - Variation 4
- Ab Major - Research on Harmony - Variation 5
- Ab Major - Research on Harmony - Variation 6
- Ab Major - Research on Harmony - Variation 7
- Ab Major - Research on Harmony - Variation 8
- Ab Major - Research on Harmony - Variation 9
- Ab Major - Research on Harmony - Variation 10
- Ab Major - Research on Harmony - Variation 11
- Ab Major - Research on Harmony - Variations 12
- Ab Major - Research on Harmony - Variations 13
- Ab Major - Research on Harmony - Variations 14
Documented at
- Catalogue Raisonné — Ab Major - Research on Harmony - Variation 1 — Ab Major - Research on Harmony - Variation 1 — Chromesthetic Acrylic on Canvas — Arnaud Quercy (2024)
- Gallery — Ab Major - Research on Harmony - Variation 1
- Nanopublication — Ab Major - Research on Harmony - Variation 1 — Digital Image Documentation - aqc0608_img_full_2598x3248_webp
- Nanopublication — Ab Major - Research on Harmony - Variation 1 — Physical Specifications
- Nanopublication — Ab Major - Research on Harmony - Variation 1 — Computational Image Analysis - AQC0608
- Nanopublication — Ab Major - Research on Harmony - Variation 1 — Spread Voicing as Spatial Composition
Thematic Elements
Epistemic profile
| Claim type | artistic statement |
|---|---|
| Voice | first person |
| Epistemic status | empirically grounded |
| Methodology | circle of fifths color wheel mapping, k-means color extraction |
| Certainty | high |
Checksum (SHA-256)
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