Art is a notoriously subjective thing. The creators of physical art pieces may have certain intentions for pieces, while people viewing the art may have entirely different interpretations of what they’re looking at. In this way, there can be no wrong in art. And in this way, someone’s likes and dislikes totally play into what they’re seeing. For us, we like math (shocking, right?), so when we look at an art piece, we subjectively see and enjoy the math behind the creation of pieces.
Basic things like measurement of lines is something that many artists bring into their work, but there are many artists who thrive on bringing math into their pieces and quite frankly have to, based on what they create conceptually. Artists like these create pieces that entirely revolve around patterns, angles and lines of perspective and we love it! So, for this entry, we’re going to discuss some of our favorite artists and why we enjoy the treasure they made.
Escher might not be in your top 10 artists to know by name, but he is quite famous in the art world for creating mathematically challenging artwork. He focused on division of a planes and played with unlikely spaces. His drawings often contained polytypes which aren’t possible to construct in the real world, more just figures that can be drawn. He often drew structural things – stuff you would find in real life, like staircases, windows, doors and balconies and when looking at his drawings, all the individual perspectives he draws look possible. When you put the whole piece together though, they were mathematically impossible. One of the pieces he’s best known for is called Relativity, which can be seen hereon the M.C. Escher official website. In this drawing, Escher uses patterns, lines and perspective to make ascending and descending staircases look possible until you look at the entire piece and they become impossible at the same time. In addition to the staircases, Escher used black and white shadowing and the combination of two and three dimensional drawings to trick your eye and make what is mathematically impossible seem possible. Perhaps the most impressive about Escher is that he didn’t use any mathematical tools to create his drawings. Just paper and sketching utensils. He freehanded all of his work and yet many of his more patterned works of art, like his piece Circle Limit III for instance, are mathematically correct in millimeter…!
“Non mi legga chi non e matematico.”
“Let no one read me who is not a math mathmetician.”
Nearly everyone who’s attended school past the age of 10 has heard of Da Vinci. If it isn’t in school that we hear about him for his famous works of art, it’s because of the famous fiction novel, The Da Vinci Code. Da Vinci is famous because of the incredible art he produced, especially for his time, but he is also revered for his use of and discovery of the golden ratio: 1:0.618. This ratio is said to be the most aesthetically pleasing for humans to look at and can actually be found throughout the whole human body.
A golden rectangle is that with dimensions that reflect the golden ratio and one of Da Vinci’s most famous pieces, Mona Lisa, has several golden rectangles in it. Around her face, divided through her eyes and from her neck to the top of her hands are all places where golden rectangles can be seen. Other famous pieces of Da Vinci’s that contain golden ratio are The Vitruvian Man, The Last Supper and Old Man. In The Vitruvian Man, perhaps our favorite, the height of the man in the circle is golden from the top of his head to his navel and from his navel to the bottom of his feet. In this drawing is where it’s easy to see the golden ration in humans.
Grossman is yet another name that might not be a household name yet, but she is gaining popularity for her art and art process. Grossmann is an American artist who’s still alive and is known for creating sculptures using computer programs and 3d modeling. She then sees her sculptures come to life in bronze and stainless-steel using metal printing technology. Her sculptures are mathematical and often contain intricate patterns or mathematical oddities. Ora, one of her classic pieces for instance, is a twisted double-tetrahedron that is symmetrical but it’s mathematically impossible to solve. Grossman also creates art that’s based on molecular structure and astronomy.
Math may not always be completely visible in art, but it is most certainly there. Geometry, symmetry , the golden ratio, angles, perspective and measurement all play huge roles in art and the more you understand about math, the more you can start to see math in art and art construction. Similar to so many things in life, math is intricately linked with some of the most famous and beautiful works or art.
