Art and Science

I’ve had a few things to say about art lately, and artists, and that everybody is one, one way or another. How much or how often I’ll blog on this topic, I can’t say. It does make a certain sense, however, this being a blog on an artist’s website. Today it’s a quick musing on the duality of art and science.

Let’s call them non-identical twins. Or the male and female that make up the whole of “mankind.” They’re opposites, and equally essential. Whether one distinction is more useful than the other at a given time depends on the time, the need, the role.

Moreover, they overlap, art and science. They often come together as part of a perfect solution. It’s the form and function working in harmony.

One of the definitions of a Renaissance man is a strong facility in both areas of art and science. It seems in that period they didn’t split things up into such specializations as we tend to today.

Leonardo da Vinci, the quintessential Renaissance man, was a masterful artist, but by his sketchbooks is known for his engineering imaginings, his inquisitiveness in botany, in human anatomy, geology, map-making, wonderful calligraphy (backward), writing, and a whole lot else. He didn’t seem to know he was supposed to be either an artist or a scientist. (Obviously not too smart.)

I read once that he entitled his book on art, The Science of Painting.*

The fact is, there is a science to painting (not all the way through, or we’d have every painting looking alike). But there is a procedure for starting out, for understanding color, for perspective in drawing, for proportion and design, etcetera, that if skipped over, is all too apparent.

And there’s an art to science. Even when all the predictable parameters are exhausted, there will still be the “unknown” where decisions have to be made by intuition or some other sense not in the text book. Consider: Medical arts. Happens in every field.

Once again, a quote from Art and Fear** helps us:

“The scientist, if asked whether a given experiment could be repeated with identical results, would have to say yes – or it wouldn’t be science.

“The artist, if asked whether an art piece could be remade with identical results, would have to say no – or it wouldn’t be art.”

If it’s repeatable, it’s science. If it’s not repeatable, it’s art.

So which do we do? We do both. One is emphasized over the other at certain moments, in certain occupations, and to satisfy certain needs.

And they overlap.

I can live with that. How about you?

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*      Unpublished. All of his writings were only in his sketchbooks.
**    Art and Fear, Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, David Bayles and Ted Orland
*** Lecturing and demonstrating today in San Clemente. For details see bottom of last e-gallery.