Art and Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time and Light
Year: 2002 Authors: Leonard Shlain
Core claim
Art and physics evolve in synchronized revolutions because visionary artists and physicists independently reveal new ways of seeing reality.
Topics
art-physics parallels, historical synchronization, space-time-light, gravity, split brain
Domains
geometry, space-time, relativity, fine art, music, literature, sculpture
Methods
comparative analysis, historical juxtaposition, cultural interpretation
Media
paintings, sculpture, music, literary examples
Paper text
The text below is the locally extracted OCR/Markdown version of the paper. Raw PDF files remain local and are not published here.
BRIDGES Mathematical Connections in Art, Music, and Science
Art and Physics
Parallel Visions in Space, Time and Light
Leonard Shlain 2100 Webster #521 San Francisco, CA 94115 415 923 3090 lshlain@aol.com
Synopsis for the Book
Art and Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time and Light
Leonard Shlain proposes that the visionary artist is the first member of a culture to see the world in a new way. Then, nearly simultaneously, a revolutionary physicist discovers a new way to think about the world. Escorting the reader through the classical, medieval, Renaissance and modern eras, Shlain shows how the artists’ images when superimposed on the physicists’ concepts create a compelling fit.
Throughout, Shlain juxtaposes the specific art works of famous artists alongside the world-changing ideas of great thinkers. Giotto and Galileo, da Vinci and Newton, Picasso and Einstein, Duchamp and Bohr, Matisse and Heisenberg, and Monet and Minkowski are just a few of the provocative pairings.
Shlain also explores the differing world views of reality in non-literate, Eastern, and children’s cultures and shows how their themes entered Western art in the late 19th century just prior to Einstein’s complete revision of the Western notions of space, time and light. He turns next to Einstein’s second great 20th century discovery concerning gravity and uses numerous examples from art to show how the sculptor anticipated and expressed the great physicist’s revolution. Shlain demonstrates how changes in music and literature synchronized with those occurring in art and physics.
The final chapters explore possible reasons why these connections occur. The split brain phenomenon and Greek mythology are used to explain our culture’s division of the two seemingly disparate fields of art and physics.