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da Vinci and Friends:
Curriculum Where Science and the Arts Meet
Reading for Scholarly Inspiration
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“Neither science nor the arts can be complete without combining their separate strengths. Science needs the intuition and metaphorical power of the arts, and the arts need the fresh blood of science."”
- Edwin O. Wilson
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The Science of Sound, 3rd edition
Music, Science, and Natural Magic in Seventeenth-Century England
Beethoven's Anvil: Music in Mind and Culture
Vermeer's Camera: Uncovering the Truth Behind the Masterpieces
Innovation and Visualization
The Ape and the Sushi Master: Cultural Reflections by a Primatologist
Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color
Notebooks of the Mind: Explorations in Thinking
Pictures And Tears: A History of People Who Have Cried in Front of Paintings
Spectacular Bodies: The Art and Science of the Human Body From Leonardo to Now
The Science of Art: Optical Themes in Western Art From Brunelleschi to Seurat
Empire Of Light: A History of Discovery in Science and Art
Colour: Art and Science
Physics for the Rest of Us
Mona Lisa's Moustache: Making Sense of a Dissolving World
Destination Mars: In Art, Myth and Science
Perfume: The Art and Science of Scent
Crossing Over
The Anatomy of Nature: Geology and American Landscape Painting, 1825 - 1875
The World of M . C Escher
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms
Play: Copenhagen
Article: Biological Art: Implications
Essay: A Moth, a Butterfly, an Elegant Merger of Science and Art
Human Accomplishment
Math and the Mona Lisa
Dialogue Between Science and Art
The Body of the Artisan
Articles: Art for Science’s Sake
The Science 0f Sound, 3rd edition
by Thomas Rossing, F. Richard Moore, and Paul A. Wheeler, 2001, Prentice Hall
This large volume (680 pages) is said to be the leading textbook in the field of the physics of sound. An introduction to the study of acoustics, it is written for people who do not have college physics or strong math backgrounds. Topics include the human voice, musical instruments, vibrations, waves, acoustics of rooms and much more. Teachers and professors who have used it with students have reviewed it with mixed comments at:
http://www.amazon.com
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Music, Science, and Natural Magic in Seventeenth-Century England
by Penelope Gouk, 1999, Yale University Press
The publisher summarizes: "What influence did music have in the domains of natural magic and early modern experimental science? In this highly original book, Penelope Gouk argues that developments in sixteenth-century musical practices changed English thought on science and magic in the next century. Her exploration of the relationships among these apparently separate disciplines sheds new light on the history of each."
http://www.chemheritage.org
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Beethoven's Anvil: Music in Mind and Culture
Ed Hessler writes: There is a review of William Benzon's "Beethoven's Anvil: Music in Mind and Culture" (Basic Books, 2001) by Joseph Rauschecker, Department of Physiology, Georgetown University Medical College, Washington, DC. A few things from it follow. Benzon considers "music the archetypal expression of human culture, preceding even language but I'm not sure of the evidence he uses. Benzon is not so interested in spatio-temporal brain events, concerned about reductionism in such approaches, much more interested in the general phenomenon of "musicking" which makes one think of "sciencing". As a musician (jazz), the author is interested in how musicians communicate while playing. He also includes comments on ethnomusicology and a history of jazz. Mr. Rauschecker notes that "the book may sometimes drive both scientists and artists crazy with its seemingly unfounded speculations, but it is a potentially productive effort to bring the two communities closer together." In addition, he includes these references to other work on music and science: 1). RJ Zatorre, I Peretz. (Eds). 2001. The biological foundations of music. Ann. NY Acad. Sci. 930., 2) D. Deutsch. 1999. The psychology of music. Academic Press, San Diego, and 3) R. Jourdain. 1997. Music, the brain, and ecstasy. Avon, NY.
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Vermeer's Camera: Uncovering the Truth Behind the Masterpieces
by Phillip Steadman, 2001, Oxford University Press
The author is an authority on perspective geometry and the history of art and is trained as an architect. He describes the camera obscura, a seventeenth-century optical device, and builds a case that Johannes Vermeer, the Dutch artist, experimented with this new technology in making his renowned art. The controversy is not at all new: people have speculated about it for over a hundred years. What is new is Steadman's meticulous reconstruction of Vermeer's studio and analysis of perspective to help shed light on this time of artistic and scientific innovation. Lisa Jardin states, "Here at last is the perfect book for anyone who has always wanted to know how seventeenth-century Dutch art achieved its particular visual brilliance. This book is a timely reminder that theirs was a culture in which art and science went strenuously hand in hand."
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Innovation and Visualization
“Innovation and Visualization: Trajectories, Strategies, and Myths” by Amy Ione, Amsterdam/New York, NY 2005. 271 pp. (Review courtesy of The Diatrope Institute) Amy Ione’s Innovation and Visualization is the first in detail account that relates the development of visual images to innovations in art, communication, scientific research, and technological advance. Integrated case studies allow Ione to put aside C.P. Snow’s “two culture” framework in favor of cross-disciplinary examples that refute the science/humanities dichotomy. The themes, which range from cognitive science to illuminated manuscripts and media studies, will appeal to specialists (artists, art historians, cognitive scientists, etc.) interested in comparing our image saturated culture with the environments of earlier eras. The scope of the examples will appeal to the generalist. Amy Ione is currently the Director of The Diatrope Institute, a California-based group that disseminates information and engages in research exploring art, science and visual studies. She has published extensively on art, science and technology relationships. Ione’s artwork has been exhibited in the United States and Europe, and is found in many collections.
http://www.rodopi.nl/senj.asp?BookId=CLA+1M
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The Ape and the Sushi Master: Cultural Reflections by a Primatologist
by Frans De Waal (Basic Books, 2001).Frans De Waal is Director of the Living Links Center, a center for the study of ape and human evolution, at Emory University (GA). Who has culture? Who doesn't? What does this mean? The book explores three themes: How we see other animals, how we see ourselves, and the nature of culture. When I read Chapter 4, "Animal Art: Would You Hang a Congo on the Wall?" I thought that we should know more about some of our old and unrecognized friends. Mr. de Waal's useful review of various forms of aesthetic expression in animals, focusing on music and art (painting) includes a recounting of our biases about animal consciousness--"Art is supposed to set civilized man apart from the rest." DeWaal has some interesting insights into the nature of science, whether bower bird's nest decorations are art and the inspiration that composers have found in nature. Mozart's "little fool" was a starling he kept that whistled a tune that with minor modifications was incorporated in his 17th piano concerto. The author discusses the ability of pigeons to pick out styles and schools of visual arts, a critical analysis of the oeuvre of ape artwork, and closes with some comments on the source of aesthetics in us--the common ground shared by humans and apes. Congo, by the way, is a chimpanzee who frequently appeared on Desmond Morris' television program, "Zootime" (England) and whose paintings were exhibited in 1957.
Review by Ed Hessler
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Bright Earth: Art and the Invention Of Color by Phillip Ball
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2001)
Here is a book which is clearly on the interface between art and science. Rich in art history, it explores the creation of dyes and pigments and their influence on painting, as well as the fashion, merchandising, textile and chemical industries. Until a couple hundred years ago, artists made their own pigments, and acquired skill as "practical chemists." From ancient Greece and Rome to Impressionism and Post-Modernism, new chemical knowledge in each age led to changes in the availability of colors on the palette. Chapters cover topics such as: "The Eye of the Beholder: The Scientist in the Studio," "Plucking the Rainbow: The Physics and Chemistry of Color" and "Masters of Light and Shadow: The Glory of the Renaissance."
Reviews found at www.amazon.com
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Notebooks of the Mind: Explorations in Thinking
by Vera John-Steiner (Oxford University Press, 1998)
This book looks into the similarities between artists and scientists in their respective creative processes. The personal writings and interviews of historical figures such as Charles Darwin, Marie Curie, Amadeus Mozart and Aaron Copland lend insights into the minds of these and 100 other creative thinkers.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0195108965/103-9721047-6355011
Did Old Masters use mirrors and lenses to achieve more detail than would otherwise be possible? This question is addressed in a book by artist David Hockney, who collaborated with physicist Charles Falco (University of Arizona) in their interdisciplinary detective work over the last couple years. Hockney's book, "Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering Lost Techniques of the Old Masters" (Viking, $60) was recently released at about the time of a New York conference on the subject. A New York Times review (11-29-01) of the book describes it as lavishly illustrated and quotes Hockney"s thesis: "From the early 15th century many Western artists used optics - by which I mean mirrors and lenses (or a combination of the two) to create living projections. Some artists used these projected images directly to produce drawings and paintings, and before long this new way of depicting the world - this new way of seeing - had become widespread." Falco told a symposium at the University of Minnesota Physics Department in January 2001 about their collaborative study. At that time Falco backed up the claims with slides of works by Giovanni Bellini, Hans Holbein, Jan van Eyck, Chardin and other artists. Some art historians are skeptical of these assertions, while others are convinced of the use of the camera obscura ( a lens which projects an image into a room) and the use of the camera lucida (a prism which allowed an artist to see details of the face of a subject). It will be a stimulating debate to follow.
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Pictures and Tears: A History of People Who Have Cried in Front of Paintings
This book by James Elkins (Routledge, 272 pages, $26), is reviewed in the 11-29-01 issue of Christian Science Monitor. Elkins, an art historian, delves into a puzzle of the emotional response art brings in people. He observes that modern people generally are detached and analytical when viewing art, in comparison with the much more emotional responses of centuries ago, when people were moved to tears by great paintings. Elkins urges art viewers to avoid museum guides and audio tours when viewing an exhibit the first time, favoring a more personal and emotional response. He asked people who have been moved to tears when viewing art to tell him about the experience. He analyzed over 400 responses. This led him to explore emotional overload experienced by visitors to the great European museums, the role of faith in art, and response to disturbing or provocative images. He still delights in the mystery of it all.
http://www.csmonitor.com/cgi-bin/getasciiarchive?script/2001/11/29/p20s1.txt
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Spectacular Bodies: The Art and Science of the Human Body From Leonardo to Now
This book (232 pages, $35) was published by London's Hayward Art Gallery and University of California Press as the catalog for an exhibit last year. It showcases hundreds of objects from art and medical museums and other sources, with artists Michelangelo, Rembrandt, and Degas among them. There are anatomical studies, photographs, models, drawings and more. Even Queen Elizabeth II contributed some Leonardo da Vinci drawings for the show!
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The Science of Art: Optical Themes in Western Art from Brunelleschi to Seurat
by Martin Kemp, 1990, Yale University Press, New Haven
This is a thoroughly researched book on the many faceted connections between the visual arts and the scientific study of optics. Major topics are perspective, optical instruments and color. The author methodically examines much more than artists using some science in their works of art; he writes of the manipulation of scientific ideas and of the thought processes which art and science have in common, from the Renaissance through the nineteenth century. The book jacket states: "For almost five hundred years the central goal of European painting was the imitation of nature. Many artists and theorists, believing that imitation must be based on scientific principles, found inspiration or guidance in two branches of optics - the geometrical science of perspective and the physical science of colour....This monumental work not only adds to our understanding of a large group of individual works of art, but also provides valuable information for all those interested in the interaction between science and the arts."
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Empire of Light: A History of Discovery in Science and Art
by Sidney Perkowitz, 1996, Henry Holt and Company, New York
This could be an excellent source book for someone wishing to use art masterpieces in teaching about of light, or inspiration for anyone interested in the connections between art and science. It is packed with examples of paintings and sculptures, with stories which enlighten the reader about aesthetic appreciation, our physiological responses, the history of the scientific study of light and the creative forces at work in the old masters. The author is a physicist who writes fluently about dozens of artists and specific works of art with the same passion with which he writes of the work of Einstein and Hubble. One example is an illustration of how artists have given us their interpretation of the world shaped by imperfect vision. Kemp describes how Degas had an extreme sensitivity to bright light, was nearsighted. Photographs and pictures seldom show Degas wearing his glasses, suggesting that he may have made a conscious decision to see a "softer" world. Degas is quoted as saying "Drawing isn't a matter of what you see, it's a question of what you can make others see."
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Colour: Art and Science
edited by Trevor Lamb, 1995, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
This collection of essays comes from a 1993 series of public lectures given at Darwin College, Cambridge. An interdisciplinary collection , the contents include topics such as "The History of colour in Art," "Colour for the Painter," "Light and Colour, "Colour Mechanisms of the Eye," "Seeing Colour," and "Colour in Nature." The editor refers to the so-called 'two cultures' of the hard sciences and the fine arts as being not in opposition to each other, but how they can - together - give a richer understanding of the topic. Topics in the essays include the development of oil painting and what properties of oil make it desirable; a history of color in which Titian and other masters were fostered in the city of Venice, which was (not coincidentally) the center of the pigment trade in Europe; and classic experiments dating back four hundred years that contributed to our understanding of light and color.
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Physics for the Rest of Us
by Roger Jones, 1992, Contemporary Books, Chicago
I got this volume from the library because of one chapter: "Physics as Art." I have also seen the author's work in portraying science as drama on public television. He describes how many physicists speak of the "deeply gratifying beauty inherent in such aesthetic characteristics of physics as simplicity, economy, elegance, symmetry, harmony, order and resonance." He writes of the influence which science had on art in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There are sections on the electronics connection (equipment used in recording studios), physics in art (pointillist painters' tiny dots or brush strokes as a reduction to the simplest elements); and physics as art (visual models, for example). He goes on to tell about creativity in science, and that "Einstein had more faith in the beauty of a theory than in the 'facts'." Jones finishes with the comment that "modern-day physics looks more and more like art, illusion, and show biz." How's that for thought-provoking?
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Mona Lisa's Moustache: Making Sense of a Dissolving World
by Mary Settegast, 2001, Phanes Press, Grand Rapids, MI
This is not a book focussing on the linkages between art and science, but this theme is addressed several times in the context of understanding our changing world. Mary Settegast explains how Western culture has divided and separated disciplines, unlike native and traditional cultures in which all is interconnected. She builds a case that in the West in the twentieth century, scientists and artists alike were discovering the interchangeability of matter and energy in physics and ways to show the interwoven relationships between forms in Cubist art. In the section "The Marriage of Science and Art" she tells how scientific technology is playing an increasing role in art, as in electronic media and computers. The author writes of the "aquarian" values of innovation, revolution and egalitarian ideas taking hold in both the arts and the sciences, and how people in both fields practice the spirit of inquiry.
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Destination Mars: In Art, Myth and Science
by Martin Caidin and Jay Barbree, 1997, Penguin Studio, New York
A visual delight to flip through, each chapter pulls the casual observer into reading the text for more information and analysis of the history of Mars as a subject for scientific study, as well as creative renderings in the arts and writing. The book examines how we on earth have perceived and depicted Mars from ancient Babylon to modern-day NASA space probes. Works of art richly illustrate the text, such as a baroque painting of people observing Mars to a romantic movement illustration of a floating Martian city. Discoveries of science and astronomy served as a basis for romantic writers a hundred years ago, just as newer discoveries have inspired space artists to depict future colonization of Mars. In the early 1900s several space operas were inspired by Percival Lowell's telescopic search for life on Mars. Gustav Holst's music "The Planets", the early the science fiction film "A Message from Mars", and Orson Welles' radio broadcast "War of the Worlds" are balanced by digital mosaics which are the best images of Mars today.
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Perfume: The Art and Science of Scent
by Cathy Newman, 1989, National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C.
Perfumers have probably always been part artist and part scientist, part creators of beauty and part methodical experimenters. This stunning book explores the role of fragrance in human history and gives a close look at these "artists who work with a palette of some 2000 notes as they formulate their symphonies of fragrance," as the book jacket says. Science enters into the picture to include pheromones and hormones playing a role in animals (and people) finding mates; gas chromatography revealing the chemicals in a scent; fragrance connects to our memory and emotions. The effect of weather, insects and fungus on flower crops is another interface with science, as is the discussion of the processes of distilling versus extracting of scents. The creator of Chanel No.5 is quoted as saying "the future of perfumery is in the hands of chemistry." In the course of the book, photographs of National Geographic's reputation support the descriptions of every topic from flower fields to bottle making and from the Japanese art of kodo (identifying fragrances) to microscopic analysis of plants.
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Crossing Over
by Stephen Jay Gould and Rosamund Wolff Purcell, 2000, Three Rivers Press, New York
This eclectic book is not so much ABOUT art and science connections as it IS art and science connections. It is a series of 30 essays and photographs, paired around specific themes or ideas. Gould comments in words while Purcell does so in photographs. The art and the science are in conversation, to show that the two fields are not or need not be seen in opposition. Gould tells how art and science "communicate in different dialects, but when juxtaposed they reflect upon and enhance one another." The first set of essays and photos deal with the nature of reality; the second deals with how the human mind gains knowledge of reality. This book leads us to question the dichotomy between art and science, and ask how they may work in tandem.
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The Anatomy of Nature: Geology and American Landscape Painting, 1825 - 1875
by Rebecca Bedell, 2001, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ
An account of the role of geology in nineteenth-century landscape painting of the Hudson River School, written by an assistant professor of art history at Wellesley College. Many of these artists read scientific texts, participated in geological surveys, and collected fossils and mineral specimens. At a time when geologists often separated themselves from religion, these American artists promoted scientific study as a way to understand God.
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The World of M. C Escher
edited by J. L. Locher, 1988, Abradale Press, New York
Prints by Escher are often cited as examples of art-mathematics connections, because of the repeating geometrical patterns. This book of essays, particularly the essay "Structural Sensation," also addresses the many scientific connections in Escher's work, which often dealt with space and visual reality. The logic and precision of Escher's art, as well as the creativity and playfulness, have found much in common with the intellectual work of scientists. The editor asserts, "Through his regular contacts with the world of science, Escher became aware of the playful element in modern science - the playful working out of possibilities inherent in scientific possibilities and viewpoints."
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Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms
by Stephen Jay Gould, Three Rivers Press, NY, 1998.
From a review by Ed Hessler, printed with permission:
In Section One, “Art and Science”, three essays probe the interface between art and science. "The Upwardly Mobile Fossils," is about Leonardo--his stunningly accurate observations in paleoecology and his theory of the earth, a material unity of microcosm (body) and macrocosm (earth), visible in the Mona Lisa. Gould places Leonardo in the social and intellectual currents of his time. In "The Great Western and the Fighting Temaraire," Gould turns his informed gaze on our treatment of scientists and artists. This essay starts with these lines: "Science progresses; art changes. Scientists are interchangeable and anonymous before their universal achievements; artists are idiosyncratic and necessary creators of their unique masterpieces" from which follows a myth, namely the inexorability of scientific and technological progress. Is this true? The central piece of the essay is an analysis of Turner's painting of the Temaraire being tugged to her last berth. The point of this essay is why are we so consistent in stressing differences rather than similarities between "these two greatest expressions of human genius?" "Seeing Eye to Eye, Through a Glass Clearly," discusses the Victorian craze, the establishment of marine aquariums which leads to a discussion of a mode of seeing, namely the drawing of the organisms and more general scenes of the communities underwater.
There are also two extraordinary chapters under the heading “Human Prehistory” (Section Three), on art and science in which Gould makes an intelligent conjunction. In "Up Against the Wall," Gould examines the parietal or wall art of caves, contrasting various analyses. Gould argues that these cave paintings are not to be viewed as primitive, or that we are up a rung or two or higher on the mountain. These painters are us, and painted in a "period of vigorous youth."
In "A Lesson from the Old Masters," Gould discusses the infamous and misnamed Irish Elk which was neither Irish nor an elk. Megaloceros giganteus is the beast with the enormous antlers, the largest of all time. It also evolved a prominent hump composed of fatty tissue. Thanks to cave art, paleontologists find evidence for this hump, for the painters "rendered the soft parts (and sometimes even the colors) of the fauna of ice-age Europe. We, their descendants, are forever in their debt for this unique style of window into the past."
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Play: Copenhagen
The drama "Copenhagen," written by Michael Frayn, is a Tony-winning play written in 1998. It is set in 1941, when the German physicist Werner Heisenberg visited his mentor, Niels Bohr, in Copenhagen, Denmark. The specifics of their meeting are not known, and have been debated by historians since, but it is clear that the encounter shattered a previously strong working relationship. The two men may have been torn apart by matters of the morality of developing nuclear weapons, by misunderstanding of bomb physics or by personality. The possibilities of the encounter that day are what the play is about. In 1947 Heisenberg spoke of his concern about evil misuse of science by politicians. In a StarTribune article (Jan. 3, 2003) actor J.C. Cutler (who played Heisenberg) said he sees "the issue alive today in genome research, weaponry and in reliance on experts - who reside in a parallel world of power outside of politics." Be looking for a chance to see this intellectually stimulating play, or at least read the book.
Written play review at:
http://www.talkinbroadway.com/regional/minn/minn17.html
Book reviews at:
http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/fraynm/cophagen.htm#summaries
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Article: Biological Art: Implications
Artist Marta de Menezes wrote a scholarly article, "The Artificial Natural: Manipulating Butterfly Wing Patterns for Artistic Purposes" (Leonardo: Journal of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology, Vol. 36, No. 1, 2003), describing her work as an artist in a laboratory. Her main objective was to "achieve wing patterns never seen before in nature, but made of normal cells and tissues in live, healthy butterflies." The genes were not manipulated at all, so the traits were not passed on to offspring, so she describes her form of art as one that literally lives and dies.
A web search led to a paper presented by Marta de Menezes, "The Laboratory as an Art Studio," presented in August 2002 at a symposium, "The Aesthetics of Care? The artistic, social and scientific implications of the use of biological/medical technologies for artistic purposes." The papers, with titles such as "The Workhouse Zoo Bioethics Quiz," "Recombinant Aesthetics," "Cute Robots / Ugly Human Parts," and "Test Tube Gods and Microscopic Monsters" may be read in the proceedings of the symposium, sponsored by Symbiotic A: The Art and Science Collaborative Research Laboratory and The Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Western Australia. Menezes' butterfly wing paper is on page 53 of the PDF document linked below.
http://www.tca.uwa.edu.au/publication/THE_AESTHETICS_OF_CARE.pdf
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Essay: A Moth, a Butterfly, an Elegant Merger of Science and Art
An essay by this title by Dr. Thomas Eisner in the New York Times (November 18, 2003) describes the writer's research into the mysteries of why butterfly and moth wings have scales. It is a pleasing summary of scientific inquiry, and it ends on a more artistic note: "There was a world of hidden dimensions in these structures, a treasury of abstract art to be explored, pointillist in design, elegant in coloration, and infinitely pleasing. There was proof in these images that science and art, while dwelling separately in our consciousness, may well merge in that vague undecipherable domain of the subconscious that guides us in our passions." See the full essay and some beautiful photos at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/18/science/18ESSA.html
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Human Accomplishment
Charles Murray, co-author of “The Bell Curve,” has written a new book, “Human Accomplishment,” which "has identified the 4,002 best scientists and artists known to encyclopedia editors, rating these great men (and occasionally women) according to how many column inches the editors have chosen to devote to each of them," explains Judith Shulevitz in a New York Times Book Review (November 30, 2003). The book review discusses Murray’s methodology and his acknowledgment of the objections that it is biased toward Western culture and toward present-day perspectives. Read the review for some mental stimulation or to see if your guess of “top” artist, scientist and writer are in synch with statistical analysis!
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/books/review/30SHULET.html?8bu
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Math and the Mona Lisa
Physicist and artist Bulent Atalay, in her recent book, “Math and the Mona Lisa: The Art and Science of Leonardo da Vinci,” (Smithsonian Books, 2004) delves into questions of why da Vinci’s drawings and paintings have had such enduring appeal over the centuries. Atalay proposes that Leonardo made good intuitive use of the Divine Proportion or golden ratio, in which the ratio of one line segment to a shorter segment is the same as the ratio of the longer segment to the combined segments. For centuries artists and philosophers have claimed that this ratio, 1.618, expresses a universal harmony found in nature (in nautilus shells), art (self-portraits by Rembrandt) and architecture (the Parthenon). Could this explain part of the appeal of Leonardo’s paintings of Mona Lisa or Last Supper?
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Dialogue Between Science and Art
Information about the summer 2003 workshop “Dialogue Between Science and Art” in the Czech Republic as well as a book resulting from the workshop can be found here.
http://giboda.aoedesign.de/Cdpresent/index.html
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The Body of the Artisan
"Science" (11 June 2004) has a review by Simon Werrett, Department of History, University of Washington (Seattle) of "The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution" (U. Chicago, 2004) by Pamela H. Smith. Ms. Smith explores the early modern period, ca. 1450-1750, from the perspective of the artisan. She proposes that artisans had an "artisanal epistemology," a distinctive form or knowing and knowledge-making which provided a critical resource for those who shaped the scientific revolution. Mr. Werrett writes, "From the 14th century on, artisans increasingly claimed to know nature through their careful observation of and physical engagement with natural materials and process, and it is this novel practice that Smith sees taken up by experimental science. While university professors were still obtaining their knowledge of nature by reading ancient texts, artisans were studying nature through their bodies; in the labors of painting, and sculpting, the preparation of materials, and the first-hand inspection of plants, minerals, animals, and anatomies." I appreciate that Werrett draws attention to Ms. Smith's choice of artists, namely the elite fine artists, noting that we still need a history of how "the rougher hands of artisans such as cartwrights, foundrymen, carpenters, and blacksmiths contributed to the emergence of modern science." Thanks to Ed Hessler (Hamline University) for contributing this.
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Articles: Art for Science’s Sake
The March 17, 2005, issue of “Nature” includes a supplement in which artists write on science and scientists write on art. Martin Kemp writes about the shared intuitions about the natural world that drive both artists and scientists; Ken McMullen describes what happens when artists and particle physicists get together to exchange ideas; Alan Lightman considers how the arts and sciences provide complementary ways of looking at the world; and Robert Zatorre explains how music involves practically every cognitive function. If you can’t access the articles on line, try to get them in the library!
http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/arts/index.html
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