Mathematics is rational, a pure and precise language. Art is emotional and an often irrational way of exploring that which can not be quantified.
Math is about all about quantifying relationships, while art is more often a language used to communicate an indefinable aesthetic.
Mathematics and the physical laws governing the perceptual universe are beautiful and harmonious in their crystaline purity. Successful Art can sometimes be ugly and revolting.
Bottom line? They occupy the same perceptual universe, and that's about it. I can think about math, science and logic, or I can think value, composition, color and the thousand other little things that go into expressing my "artistic vision". The two ways of thinking don't go well with one another in my case at least.
Asherman, I sort of disagree with your conclusion. I don't think it necessarily requires "two ways of thinking" to create art. Chaos and irrational ideas can also be part of mathematics. Ugly and revolting is all part of nature; and in that way it has it's own formula that applies to any creation of art.
"Art" is one way of ordering, clarifying, and understanding experience. Art is an approach to human experience. History, Philosophy, and Science are other ways(but not the only ways) we attempt to order, clarify, and understand our experience- our existence.
(Oscar G. Brockett.)
So, Mathematics is one way (and art is another way) of ordering, clarifying and understanding experience.
But Mathematics, like History and Philosophy, is not art. But non-the-less these and many other fields share the same goals. To make sense of our lives and the universe.
Hello, billy. Just got through trying to figure out Fresco's post, and here's another puzzler to mix the scrambled eggs of my thought process.
Individual, hie thee to a nunnery.
Google "pi" and see some of the fun , creative stuff out there for math junkies.
March 14 (3.14) is Pi Day, and also Einstein's birthday!
kirsten, "Pi" is a good analogy of why math can seem chaotic, because numbers do not repeat. I wish I thought of that!
Letty,
The cajun sent his son to LS of U and the son was home for the holidays.
"What you study in that University?"
"For one thing, I'm studying mathematics."
"What you learn in that mathematics?
"Well, for instance, that Pi R square.............
"Whoah, Nelly!!!" What da hell's dat mathematics teaching You???' Everbody knows pie are round,
cornbread are square."
Kirsten, I meant to address my joke to you.
Of course, Letty et al are welcome.
Billy, that be funny. Seems to me that some legislatures tried to round off pi to 3.00. You surprised?
Letty, Most legislators are lawyers. What can we expect from lawyers? LOL
ah, but C.I. Jurisprudence is an art form.
I have a friend who with her husband talked with interest about chaos theory. His work, which would be called abstract, is in part a response to his interest in astronomy.
What little I understood seemed to be that there is indeed order in chaos...
Way I understand chaos (as one who understands nothing about it) is thusly: you look at a plant, the whole thing. It's got a sense of order to it. Now you take a part of that plant and start to zoom in on it -- from 1x to, say, 10x. There's going to be a stretch of time in there where the picture loses any sense of order. If you zoom in on the right part, however -- say, the middle of the flower (whatever that's called) -- you'll reach a point where things again look ordered. Zoom in some more and things get disordered again until your looking at the thing on, say, the cellular level. Again, there is order. Zoom in some more, more chaos, until you start examining the thing on a molecular level. Thence to the atomic level.... The subatomic level...
Probably a deeply flawed and/or useless understanding, though...
patiodog, Not deeply flawed nor useless understanding.... We all live by our personal observations and perceptions. We all have our ideas of beauty and appeal that are objective/subjective. That's not only true of visual art, but also audio art/music. We have developed different tastes and appreciation of what we see and hear. There's nothing flawed or useless in our differences.
Aw, shucks.
Dunno if it would fly with one of them chaos-theory types, tho...
I have always felt that my knowledge in math and science has only helped my with my work in the visual arts.
