Voyage around the Square Root of Minus One
I often heard
that while the sciences concern themselves
with objective truths
the arts deal with subjective phenomena.
Many years ago I held the same view,
but later came to the conclusion
that this is just a well-combed popular myth.
It is an untenable credo
because the sharp separation
of the arts and sciences is a rigid
and arbitrary mandate, full of holes.
Although all subjects have their specificities,
at the same time they also share
many common traits with each other.
There is art in science and science in art.
Artists, for example,
apply geometry to represent
a three dimensional scene in a painting,
which is a two dimensional surface.
By using ‘objective' geometrical perspective,
Renaissance artists, among them Alberti,
Brunelleschi, Uccello, Leonardo and Dürer,
developed in Europe the ‘subjective' illusion
of perceptual realism.
Later, in the Dutch Republic of the 17th century,
Johannes Vermeer applied expensive pigments
to the canvas and conducted
pioneering research in optics that enhanced
the supreme quality of his work,
imbuing his paintings with sublime,
otherworldly light.
In the 19th century
the Romantic painter John Constable
prepared detailed studies
of the landscape and weather conditions
of England, before transcribing them
into images of stunning accuracy and grace.
Following the closing of the Weimar Bauhaus
by the Nazis in 1933, the artist Josef Albers
moved to the USA, where he worked at
Black Mountain College and at Yale University.
[...] Read more
poem by Paul Hartal
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