This week’s lecture painted a portrait of the historical
relationship between math and art. I learned that an Indian mathematician named
Brahmagupta defined the rules of zero for mathematics, setting off a paradigm
shift in how we view and model the world. I found it remarkable that centuries
after the Arab mathematician Al-Haytham derived the revolutionary principle of
perspective, the Western art world took note and flourished, starting with
Brunelleschi who introduced the single vanishing point rule and reaching its
apex with the polymath Leonardo da Vinci.
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| "Tribute Money" by Masaccio was among the first paintings that used linear perspective. |
As I read Henderson’s article on the Fourth Dimension, I
found it interesting that science also had a major impact on art, in particular
how Einstein’s Relativity Theory inspired the emergence of non-Euclidean
geometry in modern art. The novel FlatLand:
A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abott, despite being a satire on
Victorian culture, was eye-opening in its use of geometric shapes and polygons
to represent social status.
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| Flatland was an interesting book |
Fractals are neat examples connecting math and art. They can
be programmatically generated by recurring a mathematically-defined pattern at
increasingly smaller scales. The one I found online involves a circle “rolling
around” within other circles, recursively drawing star-shaped curves in a
variety of scales to produce the image below. This example helped me understand
that mathematics is art yet to be visualized.
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| Awesome fractal made using the C programming language |
Clearly, mathematics has a major influence in the arts and
sciences. Without it, art today would’ve been bland, and architecture would’ve lacked
beauty let alone structural stability. We can also thank technology, the
merging of art and science, for allowing math to truly manifest itself as
art, like fractals.
Sources:
Abbott, Edwin. FlatLand: A Romance of Many Dimensions. Print.
Dani, Mardani. “Carving Blending Math and Art.” Using C to Blend Mathematics and Art (When Math Goes Beautiful), 16 Dec. 2011, www.codeproject.com/Articles/300388/Using-C-to-blend-Mathematics-and-Art-When-Math-goe.
Henderson, Linda Dalrymple. “The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art: Conclusion.” Leonardo. 17.3 (1984): 205-210. Print.
Masaccio. “Masaccio – The Tribute Money.” Tribute Money Analysis, Artble, Florence, Italy, 1425, www.artble.com/artists/tommaso_cassai_masaccio/paintings/tribute_money/more_information/analysis.
Vesna, Victoria. “Mathematics-pt1-ZeroPerspectiveGoldenMean.mov.” Cole UC online. Youtube, 9 April 2012. Web. 15 Apr. 2018. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMmq5B1LKDg&feature=player_embedded>
Hi John,
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean when you say that mathematics is art yet to be visualized? I think that we can visualize mathematics in the calculations used to produce architecture and different geometric approaches to art, such as the vanishing point.
I agree that art would be a lot different without mathematics and the use of technology allows math to manifest itself into art, like the fractals.
Ultimately, math and art both aim to nurture in us the creative spirit and the appreciation for its most aesthetic representation.
ReplyDeleteGenerally, the beauty of math tends to be more implicit, and that of art to be more explicit.
In that sense, math is indeed art yet to be visualized.