Art & Science Essay
Design Subject 2 Essay
Science and Art – Two Cultures Divided?
Contents:
Introduction
Section 1 - Renaissance
Section 2 – Age of Reason to Modernism
Section 3 – World War II to Present Day
Conclusion
References & Bibliography
Essay Question:
How has the relationship between science and art changed and cross-pollinated since the Renaissance and has the accepted idea of separate cultures changed in that time?
Introduction
In this essay I will examine the apparent divergence of science and art since the Renaissance. This separation is shown in both the methodology and the intended use of the different outcomes created. I will also consider whether this gulf still exists between the two pursuits and how, when they converge, new and important advances can be made in both.
I will address how these two domains of human enquiry have been markedly different in the information dispersed and ‘secret knowledge’ retained. The examination of the two cultures as separate may indeed require some rethinking; “We are concerning ourselves here with interactions between activities that have, traditionally, been treated separately.” (Field 1997, p.1)
For the purpose of this essay I will take Art to be predominately painting and sculpture whereas Science I will take to be that which can (or as we will see could) be objectively proven and held as truth; though as we approach modern times the concept of ‘Truth’ becomes malleable especially with regard to postmodernism.
Renaissance:
It is widely accepted and indeed asserted in ‘Renaissance art and architecture’ by Gordon Campbell (2004) that the Renaissance began in the 14th century and continued until the 17th century. As the Middle Ages gave way to the Renaissance the classical literature and ideas that were previously lost to Europe in the Dark Ages re-emerged from Islamic scholars. At this time ‘Science’ was part of natural philosophy and included what is now considered to be humanities and also mystical beliefs such as astrology and alchemy. This was, however, changing in a myriad of ways.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519) is considered to be the epitome of ‘Renaissance man.’ He has been referred to as the last ‘polymath’ overarching both science and art by many including Levey. Michael Levey claims that da Vinci’s anatomy studies are the most ‘profound’ of the time. When considering whether da Vinci represented the final split of science and art he says, “It would be ludicrous to postulate that after the sixteenth century the natural world never again obsessed great artists.” Whilst he extols Stubbs as an example for his investigations into equine anatomy, regarding the split of science and art he adds, “Subsequently, the scientist would become much more truly scientific, doffing for ever his semi-magic robes.” (Levey 1975, p.210)
Leonardo’s work on human and horse anatomy was not published during his life or for some time after his death. The Cardinal of Aragon was one of few that had access to Leonardo’s studio. His secretary describes Leonardo as “the most eminent painter of our time.”(Levey 1975, p.162)
The discovery and usage of perspective in the Renaissance radically altered the art that was being produced. As J. V. Field notes in his book ‘The Invention of Infinity – Mathematics and Art in the Renaissance,’ the artist’s use of perspective directly affected learned mathematics. Further, he notes that the ‘useful mathematics’ of perspective was being taught in craft guilds such as the Goldsmiths’ guild by a so called ‘abacus master’ (maestro d’abaco). Access to this ‘secret knowledge’ would have been only available by being in a guild.
An example used in Field’s book and that is often quoted as proof positive that an ‘artificial perspective’ was being used is the painting by Brunelleschi of the Baptistry of Florence Cathedral. Notably, Brunelleschi, had trained as a goldsmith. It is possible to still see the view that Brunelleschi used from the opposite side of the Cathedral square, as David Hockney did with the use of a Camera obscura in 2001. Although as Field states:
Unfortunately, no writings about perspective by Brunelleschi have survived – and it is, of course, possible that he in fact never wrote anything on the subject. We do, however, know that he painted two pictures as showpieces of his mathematical rule. (Field, 1997, p.21)
In ‘Secret Knowledge’ by David Hockney, (2001), Hockney asserts that the use of drawing aids such as the one demonstrated in the following woodcut were enabling realistic renditions of curved objects such as lutes and globes in paintings of the times.
from Albrecht Dürer, Underweysung der Messung mit Zirckel und Richtscheyt ... [Instruction How to Measure with Compass and Straight Edge ...] (1525)
As science advanced in the 16th century, scientists again mirrored artisans’ craft by catching up with “secret knowledge” that was being demonstrated in the paintings of, for example, van Eyck and Bellini. David Hockney’s paper, “Optics at the Dawn of the Renaissance” written with Charles Falco of the Optical Sciences Centre at the University of Arizona in 2003, demonstrates not only the type of optical devices used by Renaissance artists but in the case of van Eyck’s “Arnolfini Marriage” the relative position and optical properties of the lens used.
In the conclusion of their paper, Hockney & Falco show that they have evidence for optical techniques being used “nearly 200 years earlier than previously even thought possible” (Hockney, 2003, p.4). Indeed Johannes Kepler, considered by many the founder of modern optics, published his work on optics in 1611 in “Dioptrice” as support for the work of Galileo. The “Arnolfini Marriage” was painted in 1434.
The most important new technology of the age was the Gutenberg Movable Type Printing Press in the 15th Century enabling much cheaper books to be produced. Essentially information could be disseminated more economically throughout the world, enabling the sharing of knowledge across disciplines.
The Age of Reason to Modernism:
The ‘Age of Reason’ in the 17th and 18th centuries further drives a schism between science and the humanities with the refinement of the ‘scientific method.’ The scientific method can be summarised as observation, the establishment of a hypothesis, the testing of the hypothesis through experiment, analysis of data and drawing a conclusion, and then, critically in the point of view of this essay, the communication of results and methodology to the scientific body.
The communication of ideas through printed books assisted both Science and Art greatly. George Stubbs revelled in his ability to reach “the Painter, Sculptor and Designer” along with the “Farriers and Horse-Doctors” with publication of his book: ‘Anatomy of the Horse’ in 1766.
Stubbs was the son of a tanner and began drawing horses and bones while growing up. In later years he also studied anatomy (Lienhard, 1997. p.1). Stubbs was keen that his printed works reach as wide an audience as possible and looked forward to their being used by the newly established Veterinarian School in France. (Stubbs, 1766. p.1)
In the 19th century, the invention of the camera was able to capture a scene or image instantly. Fox Talbot when using a camera obscura on his honeymoon in Italy in 1833 marvelled at “creations of a moment and destined as rapidly to fade away” before considering: “how charming it would be if it were possible to cause these natural images to imprint themselves durably and remain fixed upon the paper.” (Honour & Fleming, 2002. p.672)
In the 1840’s there was a large demand for portraits in Europe and America that the Daguerre process was able to fill. Daguerreotypes were seen as “alternatives to paintings” and would cost a fraction of the price of hiring an artist to produce portraits (Honour & Fleming, 2002. p.672). Daguerreotypes were on silvered copper and so were only possible for single exposures whereas Fox Talbot’s system used a negative from which many prints could be created.
The rise of photography and its ability to capture a scene completely horrified artists such as the poet Baudelaire who in 1859 railed against the ‘modern world’ saying: “our squalid society rushed, Narcissus to a man, to gaze at its trivial image on a scrap of metal” (Honour & Fleming, 2002. p.676). Charles Baudelaire’s defence of painting continued that “it is an evocation, a magical operation.” (Honour & Fleming, 2002. p.680)
With the advent of the camera, the realism achieved in the art of the Renaissance was possible through nearly instant chemical processes and some artists even petitioned against the French legal decision that photography ‘could be’ works of art. Amongst the petitioners was Ingres whose work and photo-realist feel started David Hockney on his search for the ‘secret knowledge’ that would reveal that Ingres himself was using optics to achieve his work (Hockney, 2001. p.23).
The camera would also explain aspects of science too quick for the human eye to catch. The so-called ‘flying gallop’ that had been how horses were previously portrayed in art proved to be false when Eadweard Muybridge managed to take quick consecutive photographic images of the ‘rolling gallop’ that horses actually use. “Horses in the ‘flying gallop’ vanished from battle scenes.” (Honour & Fleming, 2002. p.696)
With the publication of Einstein’s theories of special and general relativity early in the 20th century, he destroyed the idea that there was an objective, or ‘True’, frame of reference so that any ‘event’ was unique according to where and how quickly one was moving in space. This frame of reference problem is examined by Maurits Escher in his work ‘Relativity’:
M C Escher, Relativity, 1953
On the top staircase in the picture, two people are moving side by side in the same direction, yet one of them is going downstairs while the other is going up. Contact between them is out of the question because they live in totally different frames of reference and can have no knowledge of each other’s existence. (Bright, 2000, p.126)
World War II to Present:
The death of Modernism is usually considered to be after the Second World War as a reflection of the huge cost of human life and the mechanisation of slaughter that the war created. The optimism that technology would improve the world that was held by the Modernist movement was destroyed by the atomic bomb and the Holocaust, as Adorno states, “To write poetry after Aushwitz is barbaric” (Adorno, 1949. p17).
Although the term ‘Postmodernism’ would not be coined by Jean Francois Lyotard until the 1980’s, the distrust of the ‘big stories’ had already been well under way in science. The greatest battle in the early part of the 20th century in physics was the establishment of the science of Quantum Mechanics and one of its main proponents was Danish scientist Niels Bohr who said: “Every analysis of the conditions of human knowledge must rest on considerations of the character and scope of our means of communication” (Bohr, 1957. p.88). As well as the need for communication of methodology and results, Bohr also recognised the ‘observation problem’ which is the way that observation fixes the result of an experiment but only at the time of observation, until then all results are probabilistic.
Anthony Gormley reflected some of the problems with observation with his sculpture ‘Quantum Cloud’ that stands 30 metres tall on a platform on the Thames by the Millennium Dome in London. The ‘problem’ with the image “which condenses into a human body form[is]that is visible from some angles and not from others.” (Bright, 2000, p.131)
Lyotard’s Postmodernism has been summarised by Schroeder:
So Lyotard declares the death of meta-narratives… Whether meta-narratives are invoked to support the sciences (revelation of truth), political movements
(emancipation of humanity) or artistic movements (achieving deeper vision) they no longer provide the legitimacy they did in the modern era. (Schroeder, 2005, p.329)
The definitions that apply to Science and Art now are, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, about “observation” and “experiment” for Science, whereas Art is defined “as contrasted to science” as “expression of creative skill through a visual medium.” (askoxford.com, 2010.) This is one of the strongest statements about the separation of Science and Art I can find in print, but it is a view still reflected by current society. On Wednesday 28th April 2010 on Radio 4’s Today programme I heard the CEO of Mori, opinion pollsters, describe his job of giving accurate figures for voting intentions as “more art than science.”
However, scientists continue to crossover into art. In ‘On Physics,’ Naglaa Walker (2004) reveals the ideas of physics in equation form while juxtaposing them with photographs of their human equivalents. For example, a formula that describes how particles behave in an enclosed space on a chalkboard is accompanied by an image showing a man in his bedroom with a lockable door, suggesting a bedsit, asleep in bed. John Gribbin writes in the preface to Walker’s book: “Why should a scientist be introducing a book of artist images? Because science, like art, deals in metaphors.” (Gribbin, 2004, p.5)
Naglaa Walker studied physics to Bachelor degree level in 1992 and after working as a market trader she achieved a Masters degree in Fine Art from the Royal College of Art (Vassie, 2005, p.1).
Strong Interaction by Naglaa Walker in “On Physics”.
Diane Dabby has crossed over in the opposite direction, trained as a classical pianist she has gone back to university to achieve a degree in engineering mathematics and since helped develop the burgeoning science of chaos mathematics and how it can be represented in music. (Edwards, 2008, p.22)
In 2008, G. Parkinson states “It is bizarre how little of 20th century Science has been assimilated into 20th century Art” (Parkinson, 2008, p.5) but as the 21st century dawns organisations such as the Wellcome Trust actively supports artists into scientific domains through grants and open competitions. One such award was made to artist Tina Gonsalves to work with social neuroscientist Chris Frith, emotion neuroscientist Hugo Critchley and computer scientists from Media Lab, MIT. The collaboration was called Chameleon and was a project to “result in an interactive, audio-visual installation driven by emotional expression, allowing participants to explore the communication of emotion within and between social groups and how we infect each other with our emotions.” (Wellcome, 2007, p.7)
Conclusion
The end of the story (which has not, of course, ended yet) is also problematical. We know that the advent of chemical photography had a profound impact – that it sparked a revolution against the optical image (Impressionism, Cubism). There is now a new technological revolution in the making of images. What effect will that have? (Hockney 2001, p.183)
Within this essay I have demonstrated that science and art are much closer as disciplines than I believed and was led to believe when I began this project. The rise of linear perspective and movement into the use of optics in the Renaissance was achieved side by side by art and science.
The separation of these two cultures is not as pronounced as “common knowledge” and ‘culture’ suggests. Further, the idea that Leonardo da Vinci was the last polymath to bridge both pursuits can be easily refuted by the examples of Stubbs and Walker among many others.
In his introduction to the Anatomy of the Horse, Stubbs says that if he reaches both scientists and artists that “I shall think my labour well bestowed.” His apparent joy at sharing knowledge can be contrasted with the guilds and artists of the Renaissance seeking to retain their “secret knowledge.”
Despite Lyotard’s assertion in ‘The Postmodern Condition’: “The question of the legitimacy of science has been indissociably linked to that of the legitimation of the legislator since the time of Plato,” and science’s observation problem, it occurs to me that “objective truth” still exists in science. I argue that this is due to the scientific method that underpins it; “Though some may claim that science legitimates itself with practical results.” (Schroeder, 2005. p.329)
In the years that followed World War Two, access to computers ceased to be restricted solely to the military. As they became more accessible in laboratories and universities, a small group of scientists and programmers were joined by artists and designers who began to realize the creative potential of the new technology. (V&A 2009, p.7)
The quote above from the V&A still suggests that there is a separation between science and art but as I have shown in this essay, artists use technology to assist in their art from the time that ‘Science’ was established and oftentimes will advance science through their endeavours.
Obviously with an essay of this length I have not been able to be exhaustive in my examples but I have tried to reflect the interchange and opportunities that have been created in the crossover of Science and Art by my use of the advances and ‘players’ of the ages reflected.
References:
ADORNO, T, W. 1949. An Essay on Cultural Criticism and Society in Prisms USA
BOHR, N. 1957. Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge, USA, John Wiley & Sons
BRIGHT, R. 2000. Uncertain Entanglements. In: EDE, S. Strange and Charmed. UK, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
CAMPBELL, G. 2004. Renaissance art & Architecture. UK, Oxford University Press
EDWARDS, D. 2008. ArtScience. USA, Harvard University Press
FIELD, J.V. 1997. The Invention of Infinity. Mathematics and Art in the Renaissance. USA, Oxford University Press Inc.
GRIBBIN, J. 2004. Physics as Metaphor. In: WALKER, N. On Physics. UK, Dewi Lewis Publishers.
HOCKNEY, D. & FALCO, C. 2003. Optics at the Dawn of the Renaissance
HOCKNEY, D. 2001. Secret Knowledge. UK, Thames & Hudson Publishers.
HONOUR, H & FLEMING, J. 2002. A World History of Art. UK, Laurence King Pub
KEATS, J. 1819. Ode to a Grecian Urn.
LEVEY, M. 1975. High Renaissance. UK, Penguin Books
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LYOTARD, J, F. 1984. The Postmodern Condition. GB, Manchester University Press
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS. 2010. Compact Oxford Engish Dictionary. http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/. (27 April 2010)
PARKINSON, G. 2008. Surrealism, Art and Modern Science. China, Yale Uni Press.
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STUBBS, G. 1766. The Anatomy of the Horse. UK, Self-published.
VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM. 2009. Digital Pioneers. UK, V&A Publishers
VASSIE, A. 2005. On Physics: An Exhibition. http://www.absolutearts.com/artsnews/2005/04/11/32907.html. (30 April 2010)
WELLCOME TRUST. 2007. Arts Awards Summary 2006-07. http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/stellent/groups/corporatesite/@msh_grants/documents/web_document/wtx053843.pdf. (30 April 2010)
Bibliography:
ADORNO, T, W. 1949. An Essay on Cultural Criticism and Society in Prisms USA
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BOHR, N. 1957. Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge, USA, John Wiley & Sons
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CAMPBELL, G. 2004. Renaissance art & Architecture. UK, Oxford University Press
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EDWARDS, D. 2008. ArtScience. USA, Harvard University Press
FIELD, J.V. 1997. The Invention of Infinity. Mathematics and Art in the Renaissance. USA, Oxford University Press Inc.
GRIBBIN, J. 2004. Physics as Metaphor. In: WALKER, N. On Physics. UK, Dewi Lewis Publishers.
HOCKNEY, D. & FALCO, C. 2003. Optics at the Dawn of the Renaissance
HOCKNEY, D. 2001. Secret Knowledge. UK, Thames & Hudson Publishers.
HONOUR, H & FLEMING, J. 2002. A World History of Art. UK, Laurence King Pub
KEATS, J. 1819. Ode to a Grecian Urn.
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