Post 3 - The Relationship of Art and Science - Marie Marchant

                There has been a long connection between art and science. Mainly because of the subjects they both look at, the natural world. Art and science both explore the world through different mediums. Artists, like scientists, study materials, people, culture, history, religion, mythology. As well as simultaneously learn to transform information into something else. In ancient Greece, the word for art was techne, from which technique and technology are derived. These terms are aptly applied to both scientific and artistic practices. However, the curiosity of mankind sparked it all.

                  During the high renaissance, Leonardo Da Vinci became one of the most famous artists in history for his work fused with scientific investigation. Da Vinci and other artists at the time were concerned with the human body and observing the world closely. Da Vinci believed that moral and ethical narratives would only show through in paintings with accurate representation of human form and gesture. His drawing Sketch of Uterus with Foetus (c. 1511-3), accurately exemplifies how his work blends with scientific study.


               Another artist that was excited about science as well was the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. His painting The Astronomer (1668) celebrates the culture of science within the Netherlands. They were equally interested in the world and the universe and thus was invented the first versions of a telescope and a microscope. Within this painting he celebrated science, art and culture all at once. 


                In the late 19th century the psychological, physiological, and phenomenon effects of light and color were strong inspiration points for impressionists and post-impression artists. Monet suggested that our sense of our physical environment changes continuously with our shifting perceptions of light and color. In his painting On the Bank of the Seine, Bennecourt (1868), Monet paints the fleeting moment of his wife sitting on the river bank. He imitates the very notion of the way light hits our eyes, as moving rays that last just a second, a fleeting moment. 


                   Georges Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (1884) is an exercise in color theory. George Seurat studied the physics of color at the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris. The artist once said, "Some say they see poetry in my paintings, I see only science”. He used pointillism, this painting method utilizes colors in patches that essentially trick the human eye into blending them, creating luminance and shape. Critics and the public initially hated the painting, but now this scientific piece of art work is one of the most famous impressionist paintings to date. 


                      






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