Art, Science and Technology

Leonardo

Art, Science and TechnologyAuthor(s): André JaumotteSource: Leonardo, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Spring, 1972), pp. 165-168Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1572555 .

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Leonardo, Vol. 5, pp. 165-168. Pergamon Press 1972. Printed in Great Britain

ART, SCIENCE AND

TECH NOLOGY*

Andre Jaumotte**

I. THE ART OF THE ENGINEER

It seems normal to me to reflect on the relationships between art, science and technology because one speaks of 'the art of the engineer', so aptly justified by the writer Paul Valery who wrote: 'They must take charge of men, mould and combine materials, and find satisfactory solutions for unexpected problems involving the contrary demands of eco- nomics and civil and natural laws. This sort of reasoning on complex systems hardly lends itself to the assumption of a general form. There are no formulae which cover these individual cases, no equations possible between these heterogeneous groups of data; little can be done with certainty, and even to feel one's way ahead is only lost time unless one is guided by a very subtle sense of direction. In the eyes of an observer able to disregard ap- pearances, this activity, this tense waiting, these reflected hesitations and sudden discoveries might justly be compared to the inner moments of a poet. But I am afraid that very few engineers suspect themselves of being as near as I suggest to the inventors of figures and adjusters of words . . .' [1].

Such are the great builders, truly creators. It is man's nature to associate the love of materials with the impulses of the mind. Scientists and engineers, when they experience the moments of discovery and invention, are truly brothers of the artist. Creative moments are bestowed upon but very few persons. Their new ideas are then taken over by developers and replicators, whose efforts are so necessary for spreading the ideas far and wide.

The gap between the so-called humanities and science and technology has been analyzed by Snow [2] and many others. This problem of the 'two cultures' does not include the creative process itself, which is common to all these activities of man, but it arises through a lack of understanding of their different purposes and results [3].

* Based on the lecture presented on the occasion of the opening of the October 1971 session of the University of Brussels, Belgium. (Original in French.)

** Mechanical engineer, Rector of the University of Brussels, 50 Av. F. D. Roosevelt, 1050 Brussels, Belgium. (Received 1 October 1971.)

II. A BRIEF HISTORICAL REVIEW

The eighteenth century has been called the century of the invention of liberty in Europe [4]. It was then that the visual arts began to treat more frequently historical rather than religious subjects but only for a short time, for painters and sculptors became interested again in realism, in portraying nature as it appears to the eye.

There are several good rules of proportion based on nature. The most common one used is called the 'porte d'harmonie'*, it is the ratio of the length of the side of a square to its diagonal (i.e., 1 to \/2 or 1 to 1 414). This ratio is utilized by the most humble artisan. Painters use it for the shape of a canvas called 'landscape' format.

The 'golden section' involves the number 5. The section is the ratio of the side of the regular pentagon to the side of the five-pointed star constructed within it (i.e., 1 to 1-618). The ratio was used by the designers of the Egyptian pyramids and of the Greek temples and it is still used today for the proportions of art papers and canvases, however, it is slowly being replaced by other proportions. The master artists of the Renaissance made frequent use of the golden section and, in our day, Le Corbusier based his modulor on it.

The artist tried to imitate the retinal impression of colors that correspond to the spectrum of colors of solar light reflected by objects. Of course, it is a mental image of objects that the artist responds to, still, the image is moulded by the colors nature provides.

With the arrival of the Impressionists, the paths of artists and scientists were joined again but the results they obtained were achieved independently. Chevreul, a scientist, discovered the laws of the simultaneous contrast of colors and Monet applied them for the first time in his picture 'Femmes au Jardin'.

The following 'Neo-impressionists' introduced the idea of the separation of colors. Paul Signac explained it [5] and it was quickly adopted. An early picture incorporating the idea was 'Un

* In French in the text.

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Dimanche a la Grande-Jatte' by Georges Seurat, exhibited in 1886 at the 8th Exhibition of Painting in Paris. It was not called 'Impressionist' because Degas forbade the use of the term! The primary aim of the Neo-impressionists was to intensify a viewer's vision of landscape, to give him a painter's impression of it. The Neo-impressionist school gradually lost importance because it neglected aspects of form, overcome by its obsession with the visual aspects of color [6].

Cezanne's canvases of the period called 'Jas de Bouffon', inspired directly a number of artists in the years 1907-1910, who introduced the visual conception of Cubism, particularly Braque and Picasso.

As regards Cezanne, Ida Lalangue writes: 'Just as Monet was the artistic genius of the 1880's, so will Cezanne be hailed as the one of the succeeding generation for his introduction of Cubism, which definitely influenced the art of the twentieth century. At the same time when Louis Lumiere used the cinema for the study of movement, Cezanne introduced to painting the concept of time or motion. Cezanne broke the contours of classical form: he juxtaposed and superimposed on the flat surface of a picture real objects reduced to simple geometric forms-cones, spheres and cubes, a discovery as exciting for contemporary painters as the idea of perspective must have been for a Paolo Uccello' [7].

Cubism 'owes to Braque the invention of its handling of form and its creative technique, to Picasso its rupture and at the same time its link up with older traditions' [8]. Thus one of the manifestations of the art of this century was discovered. This is how Braque justifies the rejection of traditional painting: '. . . metamorphosis of space, fragmentation of the object, metamorphosis of color. Traditional perspective does not satisfy me. Precise as it is, it never gives a full grasp of things. It applies to one viewpoint and does not depart from it. This viewpoint is very limited. It is as though all one's life one sketched profiles, leading others to believe that man has only one eye .... What held my attention greatly and became the guiding influence of Cubism was the materialization of this new space that I sensed' [9].

And further, 'The senses deform but our spirit forms' expresses very well the aspirations of the cubist. Cubism starts with a real object, not to repudiate it but also not to submit to it: what is of interest are responses to the object. Thus, the path is open for the encounter of lines and colors that no longer need to be plausible. Cubism is an effort to depart from figurative art without escaping objects-an attempt to express them visually another way than before.

It can be expected that the rectangle and sphere will continue to be given attention in art. This seems to have been the opinion of Leger, the painter of life in an industrial society and of Delaunay in whose Orphism the juxtaposition of colors in a specific way gives rise to an illusion of motion.

Sculptors, such as Archipenko, Laurens, Lip- schitz, Zadkine and Brancusi, were affected by the ideas of Cezanne as were many architects of our time.

Thus, there simultaneously occurred developments in science, such as a better understanding of light, and in art, such as the ideas of color used by the Impressionists. The discontinuities of the Cubists are paralleled by the concepts of quantum mechan- ics, which have revolutionized physics.

III. ON ABSTRACTION

Non-figurative forms, the natural beauty of arrangements of lines, surfaces and volumes and of colors are on all sides in nature for anyone who has the will to look-a sea shell, a part of a tree whitened by the sea, an aerial view of the geometry of plowed fields, a stone polished by a turbulent stream. Thus, one part of what is called 'abstract' art can be seen to be related to real subjects in our world on a human scale.

What can one say with respect to aspects of the universe seen through the use of instruments ? Views of the distant very large and the very small around us (the fourth meeting of the arts with science and technology after color, motion and discontinuity) have also had a considerable influence on abstract art as pointed out, for example, in numerous texts published in Leonardo.

The tachisme of the starry heavens and of planets viewed from outer space have inspired artists, especially kinetic painters like Malina. The ideas of the structure of matter developed by science have influenced the sculptors, Laurens and Moore, who are concerned with interior volumes in their forms. Structures of wire and string have been made to convey the idea of space enclosed by slender lines of force.

Artists in our day, like scientists and engineers, know that they possess an inexhaustible capability for invention. The visible in nature does not make up all of reality. The artist, Naum Gabo once said: 'We have not discovered electricity, X-rays or the atom: we have made them. We have devised images of them. If the scientist has the right to change the surface of the Earth, why not the artist? Art is a constructive realism. The human spirit is both a creator and a creation. The exterior and interior worlds obey parallel laws. Therein is the secret of art and its comprehensibility' [10].

Although everything is permitted in art, everything that is made is not of value. I find that what is lacking in the art world of today is modesty. Excesses in eccentricity and superficiality sometimes reach alarming proportions. The views of P. Roberts-Jones on these current manifestations in art are most interesting [11].

I find that Leger [12] gave the most level-headed judgement of abstract art when he wrote:

'Perhaps this art will be classed in the future as among the kind called "artificial paradises" but I do not think it will. This approach is dominated by a desire for perfection and complete liberation, a

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desire that makes saints, heroes and fools. It is such an extreme state of ambition that only a few creators and admirers can satisfy it. It is its ethereal height that is its danger.

'Modern life, turbulent, dynamic and full of contrasts beats, furiously against this delicate edifice, which emerges coolly from chaos. Leave it alone, it is done, it had to be done, it will remain' [12].

Both Picabia and Leger treated mechanical parts for their artistic possibilities in their paintings. Garaudy says: 'The machine, which manufactures objects in flat colors and with fixed lines to precise measurements, furnishes a new repertory of structures and forms that provide to the artist the way of renewing the conception of beauty. The structure and functioning of the machines themselves suggest to the artist a new type of pictorial composition, thus creating a higher human harmony' [13].

IV. OP AND KINETIC ART Op art is a form of contemporary art in which an

object (usually containing clearly defined lines and geometrical figures) is designed so as to produce a strong visual effect. The means for producing the effect may be simultaneous contrast, vibrant color combinations, optical illusionary techniques (in- cluding the moire effect), metallic reflections, etc. The illusion of motion in an object caused by the moire effect gives the spectator the impression of metamorphosis. But one should note that visual effects are the primary artistic objective of Op art up to the present time, its message is limited-the artist is playing the role of the psychologist of perception.

Before one of the works of Vasarely, a pioneer of Op art, one might be persuaded that there is artificial illumination concealed in front or behind the canvas. One is surprised to find that the pigments used are not fluorescent or phosphorescent. The color combinations give the painting a vibrant effect. 'These surprising effects', says Vasarely, 'result from the precision in the permutation of my gamut of colors' [14].

Vasarely has described a method of making his Op art paintings as follows:

'I selected a number of forms (eternal ones): the square and the circle, which were the medieval symbols of heaven and of earthly paradise, res- pectively. In addition, the derivatives of these two fundamental forms: the oval, the losange, the rectangle and the triangle (obtained by drawing one diagonal in a square). My procedure of research is based on an alphabet of 15 binary elements me- chanically drawn on paper and made in 20 bright colors within six graded gamuts (red, blue, green, mauve, yellow and grey) each going from a very light to a very dark tone. Permutations of these elements are then made. Fifteen of the basic binary units with 90 different tones inside the units and between them give a countless number of combinations. The fundamental lesson of my method is not to raise the number of combinations but to discover

the startling qualitative effects possible by virtue of a large number of combinations.

'Furthermore, there is a new series of contrasts and novel harmonies, a return of the light and shade effects of abstract structures and the reappearance of striking monochrome color gradations. In fact, according to a color's location with respect to surrounding colors, the same color may appear light or dark, lively or dull, positive or negative. This is fertile territory where, after the artist, the experimental psychologist has a considerable role to play' [15].

A spectator neither deciphers nor reads this alphabet of colored units in the picture but on seeing it he experiences a shock, an emotion. The colors of the units can be codified easily and a computer program, prepared for the composition of such pictures.

Kinetic art, which has spread widely in the recent past, preceeded Op art and makes use of real motion and of changes of color with time. The air current-driven mobiles of Calder have given pleasure to spectators since the 1930's. Schoffer makes metal structures through which he projects colored light [16]. I do not know if he makes sculpture but I believe an art form that involves motion and light is important.

Artists today concerned with kinetic art are following many paths opened up by new discoveries in science and developments in technology. Nu- merous artists have described their kinetic art works in Leonardo.

V. CREATIVITY IN ART AND SCIENCE

'My work', says Malina, 'in the fields of the engineering sciences and visual arts leads me to support the view that in both these fields the "creative" process is basically similar, even though their objectives are so different.... In the arts, the power of invention is in some ways much freer than in the sciences, for an art object need obey no laws of nature.... The possibility of creating illusions and multiple meanings within a work offers the artist another avenue of freedom, whereas in the sciences the greatest care is taken to minimize these subjective manifestations' [3, 17].

The aim of the natural science, in the final analysis, is to predict phenomena and events that will occur in the future with the aid of the laws of nature. Can a theory of aesthetics be constructed that would be capable of predicting the effects works of art will have on people under anticipated conditions of life? Thomas Munro has taken a positive view of this possibility [18]. One might fear that such a theory would lead to the suppression of innovation, of real creation, for people's tastes can be said to have a large inertia of conservatism. There is, of course, a direct influence on art by the society in which it is made. The influence has deep roots, but it should not be limited to the direct reactions of the public to art.

The recent survey carried out at Toronto, Canada

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by the International Council of Museums with the aid of UNESCO clearly indicates the conservative outlook of the general public on painting [19]. There appears to be a gap of about two generations between creative innovations and their acceptance by the public. It is rather surprising to note that this survey found that Millet's 'Angelus' (1858-59) was one of the most popular works among those spanning the period of painting from the 1850's to the 1960's used in the survey. This conservative attitude to works of art exists in spite of the vast development of the mass media and of the im- provements in the teaching of art appreciation. It is evident that in art the 'acceptance' delay is much greater than in the case of scientific discoveries and of technological innovations.

Art today responds to the upheavals of this century, to the new contradictions and to the resolution of old ones. Artists are becoming more and more conscious of contemporary science and technology. Art has changed because our world is so different from the one of the not so distant past. Let us not be mistaken, the present-day metamorphosis touches what I consider two crucial objectives: to prevent man from slipping back into obsolete habits of thought and to maintain the spirit of seeking new ways to make the world of men better than it is.

Leger said in 1928: 'When this civilization will have attained a state

of plenitude and equilibrium, one will be able to discern, I hope, the advent of a new religion-the cult of the beautiful, in which we live and that we create. A concrete objective idealism will replace the old religions, whose aim always had been to dull the world in the opium of a life after death, a deceit that remains to be proved. We shall live, henceforth,

in light, brightness and nudity. It is there that resides the source of entirely new joys of our future' [20].

I only wish I could announce that from now on, as in France, 1% of the budget for new university buildings will be allocated to art objects-sculpture, murals, mosaics, tapestries-to humanize our surroundings. They could be living museums of art. I am pleased to report that the Secretariat of our faculty has made progress in this direction, even though it is less ambitious-we shall have periodic exhibitions of the works of art by contemporary artists in our university. Perhaps our government will loan to us recent acquisitions it has made. We have but one aim-continuous contact of our students and faculty with the works of contemporary artists.

VI. CONCLUSION

I cannot conclude my appeal for an understanding of modern art better than by quoting the following lines of Apollinaire:

We who seek everywhere for adventure We are not your enemies. We wish to appropriate vast and strange domains Where flowering mystery offers itself to whoever

wishes to pick it. There are few new fires there and colors never yet

seen, A thousand imponderable phantasms, To which reality must be given

Pity us who fight always in the front lines Of the limitless and of the future ... .' [21].

REFERENCES

1. P. Valery, 'A Foreword': in Variety, translated from the French by M. Cowley (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1927) p. 114.

2. C. P. Snow, The Two Cultures (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1964).

3. F. J. Malina, Some Reflections on the Differences Between Science and Art (1965), in: Directions in Art, Theory and Aesthetics, ed. A. Hill (London: Faber & Faber, 1968).

4. Y. Starobinski, L'invention de la liberte: 1700-1789 (Geneva: Skira, 1964).

5. P. Signac, D'Eugene Delacroix au neo-impression- isme (Paris: Herman, 1964).

6. H. Lavachery, L'art moderne ou la nature contestee, Bull. Classe des Beaux Arts, Acad. Royale de Belgique, No. 11, 269 (1969).

7. I. Lalangue, Art et technique, Ecole Superieure d'Ingenieurs de Beyrouth, Lebanon, Tech. Pub. No. 23, 1970.

8. J. Paulhan, La peinture cubiste (Paris: D. Gonthier, 1970).

9. G. Braque (Basel, Switzerland: Beyeler, 1968). 10. (Cf. Ref. 7). 11. P. Roberts-Jones, Pour un art permanent, Revue de

l'Universite de Bruxelles, No. 2-3, 295 (1971).

12. F. Leger, De l'art abstrait, dans Fonctions de la peinture (Paris: Gonthier, 1965).

13. R. Garaudy, Esthetique et invention dufu'tur (Paris: Union Generale d'Editions, 1971).

14. Vasarely, II (Neufchatel, Switzerland: Editions du Griffon, 1970).

15. Interview of V. Vasarely, L'Express, 8 June 1970. 16. Schoffer, Le nouvel esprit artistique (Paris: Denoel-

Gonthier, 1970). 17. A. Jaumotte, Comprendre, decouvrir et inventer,

Revue de l'Universite de Bruxelles, No. 1-2, 35 (Oct. 1969).

18. T. Munro, Evolution in the Arts (Cleveland, Ohio: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1963).

19. The Public and Modern Art, The Unesco Courrier, 24, 6 (March, 1971). Also, Contemporary Art and the Public, Leonardo 4, 389 (1971).

20. F. Leger, Conference held in Berlin in March 1928 published in Varietes, Brussels No, 10, 522 (1928).

21. G. Apollinaire, 'The Pretty Red-Head' ('La jolie rousse', Calligrammes), in Selected Writings of Guillaume Apollinaire, translated from the French by R. Shattuck (London: The Harvill Press, 1960) p. 195.

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