Humanism
With the significant shift of style of composers of the Humanist movement—the rediscovery and translation of Greek texts in the mid-16th century—eye music flourished. The change in musical practice, particularly with the madrigalists and their focus on text declamation, at a word-by-word basis, was fertile ground for eye music. Words that suggest "blackness," such as "death" or "night," receive "black" notes (e.g. quarter notes, eighth notes; "white words" such as "light" or "pale" receive "white" notes (e.g. whole notes, half notes).
With the Italian madrigalists from the 1580s until the early 17th century (whose style was almost literally imported to England), eye music reached its apogee until its transformation in the 20th century. Luca Marenzio is considered the composer most fond of eye music. For example, in the madrigal Senza il mia sole from his Madrigali a quattro, cinque e sei voci (1588), black notes are used for "chiuser le luci" ("close their eyes")
Reaction by theorists of the time was mixed. A leading musical humanist, Vincenzo Galilei (the father of the physicist), was opposed to it but Zarlino approved. In the 20th century, Alfred Einstein, a groundbreaking scholar of the Humanist madrigal, wrote that eye music is "the most extreme and (for our aestethic convictions) most horrible testimony of naturalism, of imitazione, in the madrigal."
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