Math and Art

Before this weeks lecture, I often comprised the studies of mathematics, science, and art as their own distinct entity. However, I learned that these fields have many overlapping aspects that influence each other. The connection of art and science is through mathematics and art, which in turn brings art and science together by the use of technology. Artists throughout history have incorporated mathematics in their creative work and expression to create precise shapes and sculptures through varying perspectives.

An interesting thing I learned in this weeks lecture is that in order to create shapes in visual art, an artist needs to use mathematical formulas to calculate the measurements and dimensions to get an accurate product. The ideas of perspective did not come to the West until the 13^th Century when Giotto painted scenes with the illusion of depth, which was driven by intuition and the understanding of linear perspective. However, Brunelleschi was the first person to use the correct formulation of linear perspective by incorporating the use of geometry and algebra to produce art.

 

This is one of Leonardo's Illustrations for Pacioli's Divina proportione from Renaissance Art

It is interesting to think about how our knowledge in mathematics has played a significant role in our society throughout history. For instance, zero was originally used punctuation mark in Ancient Mesopotamia and was not declared a number until it appeared 650 AD India by mathematician Brahmagupta. His ideas spread through China and eventually made its way to the Western mathematics system in the 1600’s.

This is ancient Babylonian cuniform expressing zero

After reading FlatLand: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott, I couldn’t help but think that the cohesion of math and art plays a much bigger role in our world than I ever thought. Not only are math and art used to help make sense of the physical world but of the unobservable universe as well. Modern technology has had a huge impact on the relation of math and art by furthering our knowledge and helping us see the world through different perspectives.

Al-Haythem understood the Optics to create dimension

Sources and Links

https://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/math5.geometry/unit13/unit13.html

http://www.math.ubc.ca/~cass/courses/m446-03/pl322/pl322.html

http://www.islamic-study.org/optics.htm

Works Cited

Abbott, Edwin. “Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions.” N.p., n.d. Web. 12 April. 2015. <https://cole.uconline.edu/content>.

Vesna, Victoria. “Math + Art.” Lecture 2.

Math Intro. By Victoria Vesna. YouTube. Uconlineprogram, 12 April. 2015. Web. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHiL9iskUWM&feature=player_embedded>.

Vesna, Victoria. “Mathematics-pt1-ZeroPerspectiveGoldenMean.mov.” Cole UC online. Youtube, 9 April 2012. Web. 12 April. 2015. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMmq5B1LKDg&feature=player_embedded>