Week 2: Math + Art

As the only math student among my friends, I noticed that most of them observed the connection of math and art to be a one-way street; that is, art occasionally contained mathematical concepts by coincidence, while math never contained anything artistic. We grew up around some apparent exceptions such as The School of Athens by Raphael and the Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci where we learned about their utilization of perspective and the golden ratio.

But discoveries in mathematics can function as an inspiration to artists. Take a look at the 20th century painter Marcel Duchamp. From The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art: Conclusion, the concepts of multi-dimensional and non-Euclidean geometries liberated Duchamp from the rigid styles of conventional oil painting. He was no longer confined to the common themes of art in his day, and we can clearly observe this shift in his style between Man Seated by a Window of 1907, a typical oil painting of his era, and The Passage from Virgin to Bride of 1912, a beautiful experiment on the interplay of dimensions.

These concepts had revolutionary implications, exposing him as well as other artists to radically new ways of experimenting with their work and providing him with the intellectual means to expand art. In The Passage from Virgin to Bride and many works like it, the play on dimension is not coincidental. Math was a catalyst to create more abstract art, thus expanding the artistic bounds of Duchamp’s day.

I believe in a two-way street between mathematics and art. Origami, a traditional Japanese art form dating back hundreds of years, is a classic example. This art of paper folding has piqued the interest of countless mathematicians and scientists. Erik Demaine, an MIT professor, developed an algorithm that could tell you how to fold a piece of paper into any 3D shape. Here, we have a case of art inspiring math while the art of origami is inherently geometric. All it takes is a little perspective to see that mathematics and art are intertwined.

Images from top to bottom: Man Seated by a Window (1907), The Passage from Virgin to Bride (1912), an origami truncated icosahedron

Works Cited

“BETWEEN THE FOLDS | History of Origami | Independent Lens.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, www.pbs.org/independentlens/between-the-folds/history.html#:~:text=Classical%20and%20Traditional%20Origami,purposes%2C%20often%20religious%20in%20nature.

Duchamp, Marcel. Man Seated by a Window. 1907, MoMA.

Duchamp, Marcel. The Passage from Virgin to Bride. 1912, MoMA, Floor 5, 508.

Henderson, Linda Dalrymple. “The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art: Conclusion.” Leonardo, vol. 17, no. 3, 1984, pp. 205–210. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1575193. Accessed 18 Apr. 2021.

Larry Hardesty. “Computational Origami.” Computational Origami | MIT EECS, MIT News, 22 June 2017, www.eecs.mit.edu/news-events/announcements/computational-origami.

“Truncated Icosahedron – Mathematical Origami.” Mathigon, mathigon.org/origami/truncated-icosahedron.

Wikipedia contributors. "The School of Athens." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 27 Mar. 2021. Web. 18 Apr. 2021.

Wikipedia contributors. "Vitruvian Man." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 8 Apr. 2021. Web. 18 Apr. 2021