Final Artist Statement
Art and science, two parts of a complete education. Everyone took art and science classes growing up but they were always seen as two completely different disciplines. The arts were focused on creativity and expression while the sciences were focused on finding data and testing hypotheses. There are even a number of stereotypes associated with artists vs scientists/engineers and in the media and popular culture they are often portrayed as very different types of people. I believe that art and science both benefit from aspects taught by the other, and they aren’t as different as many people assume. For instance science can benefit from creative thinking and art can benefit from scientific theories and rational thinking. In fact, science and math concepts are frequently used by artists, both contemporary as well as famous artists throughout history. From the proportions of the golden ratio being used as a composition tool to color theory, artists have been using science in their artwork for centuries. I will attempt to follow in the footsteps of these great artists and prove that art and science can benefit each other in many ways by using math and science in the art creation process.
A model for schooling called STEM has become an extraordinarily popular curriculum for k-12 schools. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Each of these fields of study are interrelated and an important part of today’s society. But a lot of educators noticed that an important field was missing from this model -- art. The acronym was adjusted to STEAM to include art and a lot of schools are indeed using the new model. But why were the arts missing in the first place? Maybe it’s because careers are so specialized in our modern world that oftentimes you need to focus on either science or art, and specialize further still, to pursue a specific career. However, I believe that art and science benefit each other and are two parts of a complete education. After all, artists have been using science concepts in their work for centuries.
Artists in the Renaissance were famous for dabbling in science. Many of them practiced anatomy and regularly dissected human bodies, this helped their art practice because they understood the underlying structures of the body and as a result, there was an evolution in figure drawing and sculpture in the Renaissance. Their artistic ability led to a deeper understanding of anatomy as well and creating anatomical images during a time before the invention of the camera was necessary for sharing their discoveries. Images were required to better understand the structure of the anatomy they were studying, “as a science that entailed the description of forms, anatomy required images … this is one of the reasons artists became involved, and it led to the nexus between art and science that assumed such unique forms in this period” 1. Not only did Renaissance artists study anatomy to help in their paintings and drawing but they studied anatomy purely in the pursuit of knowledge and they had the skills to reproduce what they were seeing to be able to share their discoveries with others. Another staple of the Renaissance was the development and focus on linear perspective. Linear perspective is a mathematical system for reproducing and projecting 3D space on a 2D plane. J. V. Field, author of Giovanni Battista Benedetti on the Mathematics of Linear Perspective writes, “mathematically speaking, the perspective construction is a form of projection, in which points of the object become points on the picture plane” 2. The artists that invented the system of linear perspective as well as the artists who used it, knew the mathematical importance of the system. It was a way to accurately project 3D space onto a 2D plane. Linear perspective is used to determine how large objects should appear in the background and the angles that objects should be rendered at. Linear perspective is so important that anyone studying art knows what it is and the importance of it. Every art class will teach students linear perspective and even if it seems like an intuitive drawing tool, it is heavily based in mathematics. The artists of the Renaissance are often seen as some of the best and most innovative artists in history and they understood that science can improve art and vice versa. They were both artists and scientists, meaning they practiced both and often their art skills were essential to their science practice and their science skills were essential to their art practice.
Artists and scientists even think in similar ways and both disciplines can serve similar purposes, “the scientist and the artist both search for the reality that exists beneath the surface of reality; the artist might describe the scientist’s problem-solving as inspiration, and both evolve from creativity” 3. Irene Plonczak and Susan Goefz Zwirn are researchers and educators who are interested in the intersection between art and science in STEAM curriculums. In their article, Understanding the Art in Science and the Science in Art Through Crosscutting Concepts, they bring up the example of “Ramón y Cajal, whom many consider the father of modern neuroscience. [Cajal] shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his work on the structure of neurons. He took extraordinary lengths to draw and redraw, using various drawing techniques and materials, the neurons he viewed under his microscope” 4. Like the artists in the Renaissance drawing anatomical structures, Cajal only understood the structure of neurons after drawing it. The act of drawing it also let him easily share his findings with colleagues and the public. Clearly, art can be a superb tool for scientists, likewise, science is instrumental in the creation of art.
For this project, I utilized arts-based research (ABR) to investigate ways that artists can use scientific and mathematical concepts to enhance their art making. ABR is a way to combine creative thinking with scientific research practices, “[the] partnership between artistic forms of expression and the scientific process integrates science and art to create new synergies and launch fresh perspectives” 5. Therefore, just practicing ABR is a way to integrate science and art. I wanted to see if I could take a mathematical or scientific concept and use it to influence my aesthetic choices in the art creation process. During my investigations I came across Euler’s Characteristic. Leonhard Euler was a famous mathematician who is most well known for finding the number e (2.718). Euler’s Characteristic is not as famous but I wanted to see if I could use it in the art creation process. The characteristic is as follows; v - e + f = 2 6. This means, the vertices of a shape minus the edges plus the faces equals 2. This is best understood with the example of the cube. A cube has 8 vertices, 12 edges and 6 faces. 8 - 12 + 6 = 2. This same formula applies to all platonic solids. Platonic solids are 3D shapes where all the faces are the same exact shape. These include the tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron and the icosahedron. For my project, I constructed all of these shapes by using a laser cutter to cut and etch Bristol board (fig. 1-5). Euler’s characteristic also applies to 2D lines with two conditions; the line must be continuous and intersect itself once and it can’t intersect the bounding box it’s inside. With this in mind, I drew lines that follow this formula on each of the sides of the shapes (fig. 6). I chose to use only black ink because I wanted to draw attention to the shapes and forms created by the lines. I didn’t want the viewer to be distracted by color, the shape of the line was the most important feature. The lines create complex shapes and patterns and represent the organized chaos of the universe. Even though the forms the lines create are very complicated and chaotic, they can be described by one simple mathematical equation -- the same equation that relates to the 3D forms as a whole. The end result is a series of art objects that are visually interesting and are based on a single mathematical equation. This is how I was able to use art to research scientific and mathematical concepts and integrate that knowledge into my own art making. I let math and science guide my decision making while working on this project to show that math and science are an important part of art making and can be used to enhance art and design. I also used math and science in my art making to draw attention to the fact that math and science concepts are everywhere, often “hidden in plain sight”. What we see is the structure and form of the 3D shapes, with complex lines drawn on the side, but these are actually just the result of a simple mathematical equation. I believe the same can be said about most of the natural systems we observe in everyday life. A forest, for instance, seems like a really complex system but it can be described by fractals and the structure can be mapped out by math. I believe most, if not all, of the universe can be described by similar mathematical ways. Art is a way of understanding the world around us and for that picture to be complete math and science concepts need a place in art making.
In our modern world and especially in education, art and science are seen as opposites. This could be because professional fields have become so specialized that students who study art will end up in different jobs than students who study math and science. But no matter what field someone ends up in, math and science fields can benefit from artistic thinking and art fields can benefit from math and science thinking. The Renaissance is often seen as the point in history where art and science began to flourish. New methods for creating realistic art were developed and these techniques were only possible because artists studied math and science and practiced both. Dissecting human bodies and drawing the structures led to discoveries in anatomy and greatly benefited the practice of figure drawing. Likewise, an understanding of mathematics led artists to come up with a system for accurately reproducing linear perspective on a 2D plane. It’s obvious Renaissance artists understood that science and art benefit each other and are closely related. To show that math and science can benefit art making, I used mathematical concepts in my own art making. I created a successful art series based on one simple mathematical formula, using that to influence my aesthetic choices.
Endnotes:
1. Domenico Laurenza, “Art and Anatomy in Renaissance Italy: Images From a Scientific Revolution,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 69, no. 3 (Winter 2012): 5.
2. J. V. Field, “Giovanni Battista Benedetti on the Mathematics of Linear Perspective,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 48 (1985): 73-74.
3. Irene Plonczak and Susan Goefz Zwirn, “Understanding the Art in Science and the Science in Art Through Crosscutting Concepts,” Science Scope 38, no. 7 (March 2015): 58.
4. Plonczak and Goefz Zwirn “Understanding,” 60.
5. Gioia Chilton and Patricia Leavy, “Arts-Based Research Practice: Merging Social Research and the Creative Arts,” The Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research (August 2014): 2.
6. Peter Hilton and Jean Pedersen, “The Euler Characteristic and Polya’s Dream,” The American Mathematical Monthly 103, no. 2 (February 1996): 121.
Bibliography
Chilton, Gioia and Patricia Leavy. “Arts-Based Research Practice: Merging Social Research and the Creative Arts.” The Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research (August 2014): 1-40.
Field, J. V. "Giovanni Battista Benedetti on the Mathematics of Linear Perspective." Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 48 (1985): 71-99.
Hilton, Peter, and Jean Pedersen. "The Euler Characteristic and Pólya's Dream." The American Mathematical Monthly 103, no. 2 (1996): 121-31.
Laurenza, Domenico. "Art and Anatomy in Renaissance Italy: Images From a Scientific Revolution." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 69, no. 3 (2012): 4-48.
Plonczak, Irene, and Susan Goefz Zwirn. "Understanding the ART IN SCIENCE and the SCIENCE IN ART Through Crosscutting Concepts." Science Scope 38, no. 7 (2015): 57-63.