Leonard Slain has written a compelling story of mankind in a journey through questions of the ages. It seems that the great questions on existences captivate the artist as well as the scientist, and that they are essential for a society if they want to change their understanding of our external world in the book Art & Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light (1991;2007).
Noteworthy is that this book was written by an outsider to the intricate thought processes and specific language of the fine arts and physics worlds; he would find himself befuddled in major modern and contemporary art museums. It didn't make sense to him that art was too cryptic for a medical surgeon to understand. He questioned why it was difficult for many portions of the public, including educated doctors like himself, to fully grasp some visual concepts. Why are most people turned off by the grandiose glare of modern art and physics, revolutionary engines of change in society, when they have such important impacts on us all.
He took upon himself the task, in order to understand both of these more fully, to do research on the development of Art and Physics through the ages. In doing this he noticed a peculiar pattern, an interplay between the visual artists and subsequent genius scientists who would articulate new forms of rationality and perspective of reality.
"the artist presented society with a new way to see the world before a scientist discovered a new way to think about the world." (73)
Leaf fractal, 271, 2016. Van dyke print on cotton paper.
In his introduction he specifically mentions that his subjective view of the sequences of history can be bias, but it is a very humble search for truth that I was immediately excited to read more of. With that mentioned is a constant reminder that physics as we know it is different even today, even within nine years much has to be explained in detail of which would not be included.
This book is a great recommendation for anyone who has felt belittled in a modern art museum or when discussions of physics comes up at the dinner table, it is told by a less bias perspective of a medical surgeon who went to school neither for art survey or physics classes.
SPACE
Near the beginning of the book, enters Euclid, a great philosopher of Alexandria during the classical era. He was attributed with the though of geometric space, "organized space as if its points could be connected by an imaginary web of straight lines that in fact do not exist in nature," so Geometry became a mental abstraction of space. Archimedes then reflected on Euclid's basic five postulates, determining that in Euclid's homogeneous space that "the shortest distance between two points is a straight line." p31. (With the advent of the abstract idea of a straight line allowed the Greeks and Aristotle to view a linear time, opposite to commonly held understanding that time was cyclical.)*
Even today this form of thinking still seems completely sensible. Only when you look closer might we notice less is straight and certain as it seemed.
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"Everyone learns this system of thinking so early and it works so well that it is very difficult to see its deficiencies. But, if truth is the correspondence between appearance and reality, then there are some glaring inconsistencies in this system. Straight lines are strikingly absent in nature. If you take a walk in the woods, it is apparent that there is virtually nothing that is ruler straight. Instead all naturally occurring forms are curved and arabesque.
Despite this direct evidence of our senses, we continue to connect everything with straight lines."
(33).
With that I began to think of the flat ordinary things in nature that could propose a straight line. It seems to me that if a straight line does appear, it is restricted to one point of view or perspective. The vein down the middle of a leaf by view above might look as straight as a ruler, but from most other views it is clearly a curve.
Leaf fractal, 267, 2016. Digital photograph of Vandyke brown print on cotton paper.
The perpendicular alignment of tree trunks can look to have a smooth, straight edge, but the column of the tree curves infinitely round the waist of the trunk. It seems curves can appear deceptively straight at times.
We become used to reading space in regards to lines. Most people don't image the inclines and hills when driving to the store; maps alter our perception of roads into two-dimensional, left, right and straight patterns. In a world of l x h x w, the car allowed us to overcome concerns for height any more. Even the most straight roads are not lines, but rather curve or angle at some relation to it.
Straight lines can also seem deceptively curved.
LINES
"To the Renaissance artist it was apparent that two parallel lines in three-dimensional space when projected onto a two-dimensional plane (such as a canvas) are not parallel but meet at a point on the horizon called the vanishing point." (68)
Shlain attributes much of this accepted view of a geometrical space due to the paintings of Giotto in the 13th century. When it seemed all classical view and perspective were lost to the medieval ages, one artist discovered the Euclidean perspective of space where the third dimension could place figures in time with the addition of shadows on a flat surface. Projective geometry drew from one point in space.
The horizon, in many cultures and histories, has been the most iconic line. Gazing into the ocean horizon is a distinct line of unknown distance, and as with the curvature of the planet, it is not s straight line.
Gravity which holds the earth in its sphere like shape cannot be counted on to bring the straightest lines. Even the stillest surfaces of water bow at the rim, the polarity of water molecules that are their form create patterns that naturally curve.
If a silk worm or spider could hang by a strand of silken web, even with minimal wind or movement, would the string remain completely taught and straight? Like rope, even silk has depth to it, and might curve in shape like the cylindrical volume of a hair give only the illusion of a straight line.
Fractals represent irrational numbers that self-produce, following sequences and angles, but their geometries are of ellipses, parabolas and curves.
It becomes doubtful there has ever been a perfectly distinct line in nature. What of crystallized elements, or naturally formed gemstones? Do they contain elusive qualities we perceive in a three-dimensional world, or real evidence of a straight line in nature?
LIGHT
My faith in certain truths remains lit, as later into the book Shlain discusses special relativity, and it seems that new dimension and understanding all point to a central notion, LIGHT! Perhaps as I read further I might understand more about the nature of space in relation to light, but it most certainly the most bizarre forms of energy, one that is both straight to the nth degree and also a volley of waves. Light reveals the contours of matter and probably hold answers to the questions this book raises.