Why Science Needs Art

From Historical to Modern Day Perspectives

Richard Roche, Sean Commins, Francesca Farina

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781317337997
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Cognitive Psychology & Cognition
• Index: Psychology

Why Science Needs Art explores the complex relationship between these seemingly polarised fields. Reflecting on a time when art and science were considered inseparable and symbiotic pursuits, the book discusses how they have historically informed and influenced each other, before considering how public perception of the relationship between these disciplines has fundamentally changed.

Science and art have something very important in common: they both seek to reduce something infinitely complex to something simpler. Using examples from diverse areas including microscopy, brain injury, classical art, and data visualization, the book delves into the history of the intersection of these two disciplines, before considering current tensions between the fields. The emerging field of neuroaesthetics and its attempts to scientifically understand what humans find beautiful is also explored, suggesting ways in which the relationship between art and science may return to a more co-operative state in the future.

Why Science Needs Art provides an essential insight into the relationship between art and science in an appealing and relevant way. Featuring colorful examples throughout, the book will be of interest to students and researchers of neuroaesthetics and visual perception, as well as all those wanting to discover more about the complex and exciting intersection of art and science.

1

The Incomplete Mind

Scientists and artists are not as different as they may seem. For most, the stereotypes associated with each are very familiar – the passionate, volatile artist in a chaotic studio; the cold, impassive scientist in a sterile, orderly laboratory. These caricatures are, in almost every sense, polar opposites of each other. Yet this is simply not the case. These cartoonish representations are easily refuted by reference to any of the plethora of passionate, tempestuous scientists or systematic, methodical artists that we can name. But the deeper claim – that the two are fundamentally opposed – is just as easily waved away by pointing to the numerous and profound similarities that artists and scientists share. For at their core, the approaches of art and science are intrinsically related, so much so that we may consider them siblings.

When we think of art, the concept that most easily comes to mind is consistent with the Western tradition of pictorial, figurative representations – painting, drawing, sculpture and other such visual forms. This is, of course, a narrow and culture-bound view, as art extends beyond the visual to encompass the verbal, and the line between these two can often be blurred: verbal art can be visual – poetry, metaphor, typography – just as easily as visual can be verbal. Verbal and visual art can also occupy the same space comfortably. Bearing this broader view in mind¹, we will continue to discuss mainly figurative forms of visual art and the creators thereof.

The commonalities between artists and scientists are many – they are both interested in reducing the infinitely complex to something simpler: the intricate structure of a tree to a few strokes of a brush; the relationship of matter and energy to a single, concise equation. They both strive to express that which is difficult to comprehend in a purer, more elegant way. Both must observe the world very closely. A large portion of the artist’s task is to simply look, study and note things about the environment around them²: colours, shapes, light and shadow, texture, detail and motion. All of these aspects must be closely regarded and understood before pencil is put to paper, brush to canvas, chisel to stone. Likewise, the scientist must scrutinise phenomena very minutely, sometimes over and over again to validate their observations. Notes must be taken, anomalies recorded, patterns discerned and changes monitored. In both cases, artists and scientists spend much of their time looking before they act.

Artists and scientists employ specific methods in order to pursue their goal. Whether these techniques involve the manipulation of paint on a palette or variables in an experiment, the moulding of clay or the handling of data, they are skills which must be learned and perfected over time before work can commence. This period of apprenticeship is often long – historically, years of learning in the presence of a master; years of study in the laboratory of a supervisor. In both cases, these skills and techniques are taught, acquired, refined and honed through repeated use, feedback, development and eventual expertise. And yet, even then, for both the artist and the scientist, there is always more to be learned. To paraphrase the great astronomer and science communicator Carl Sagan, science and art are ways of thinking much more than they are bodies of knowledge.

The work of both artist and scientist can have a deep and profound effect on people. This may come via a shocking or evocative piece of visual art or through a new and controversial scientific theory. The statements that they make, whether verbally in hypotheses or visually through a painting, sculpture or installation, can often elicit the strongest feelings in those that witness them. And, in both cases, these feelings can be overwhelmingly positive – elation, awe, excitement – or negative – hate, suspicion, prejudice or simply bewilderment (for example, modern art or scientific jargon). Regardless, it can be said that few topics are more divisive than art and science.

One further fundamental similarity that artists and scientists share is what they endeavour to achieve through their work. Both are concerned, at the deepest level, with the expression of fundamental truths in some form: insights about ourselves, about the world around us, about the nature of nature itself. Both seek to enlighten, illuminate and enable people to better comprehend themselves, their world and their relationship to it. In short, they attempt to promote a deeper understanding of everything.

In recent years, we have seen the emergence of a new field of study, neuroaesthetics, in which the methods of neuroscience – such as brain imaging – have been applied to the study of what humans find beautiful, aesthetically pleasing or artistically interesting. This scientific endeavour to reveal the neurobiological underpinnings of our sense of vision, visuality³ and aesthetic appreciation has been greeted by some with deep scepticism and suspicion. Such objectors claim that the attempt to isolate and quantify the brain areas and neural architectures which allow us to appreciate great art somehow diminishes the achievement of the artist or removes an element of the mystique from the creative process. Here we will consider some of the early findings from this fledgling field and outline how some principles of perception and visual information processing can help us to better appreciate the astonishing skills and techniques used by artists to create their desired effects. In so doing, we will allow the reader to decide for themselves whether this knowledge detracts from the experience of appreciating these works or enhances it.

Other critics⁴ claim that while art has learned much from science, science, in turn, can extract nothing new or valuable from art. This view comes in response to the increasing number of recent collaborations between artists and scientists on projects which seek to find a synthesis of the two areas, with generous funding for such projects awarded by the UK’s Wellcome Trust, among others. Happily, some scientific images have begun, in recent years, to be appreciated for their aesthetic merit as well as their relevance to research, leading some to ask why these images from science should not be considered ‘Art’ with a capital ‘A’⁵. In many branches of science, prizes are now awarded for the most striking or beautiful images obtained from experimental data, and an academic journal has been founded – the Art and Science Journal – to celebrate images which bridge the divide between these two spheres. Yet the question posed by critics of this approach is a pertinent and important one: what – if anything – has art given to science?

This book seeks to discuss these ideas by tracing the history of the relationship between art and science, considering current tensions between the two disciplines, and looking to the future of how these two seemingly polarised approaches to understanding may be able to co-exist under the rubric of neuroaesthetics. The book begins by recounting the Renaissance, a time when art and science were seen as inseparable and symbiotic pursuits, an approach best epitomised by that colossus of both fields, Leonardo da Vinci, who wrote:

Principles for the Development of a Complete Mind: Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses – especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.

Attributed

We then describe how, even after these two paths to knowledge have diverged, there remain many examples of art influencing and performing an important role for science; these examples are taken from diverse areas such as microscopy, brain injury and data visualisation. Finally, we turn our attention to the future, and how the emerging field of neuroaesthetics may enable the relationship between the two to return to a more co-operative, interdependent state by using science to discover how certain pieces of art are so affecting and uplifting.

Throughout this book we will provide examples of how aspects of art – and, more specifically, visual forms of art – have historically given something to science. We will present images which have helped to steer the direction of scientific fields of inquiry, made a complex idea more comprehensible, or revealed something unexpected about an aspect of the human condition. Such images convey stories of where art and science converge and intersect, encircle each other and occupy the same space at the same time. They represent the reciprocal relationship of these two routes towards self-knowledge along which we navigate – of art underpinning science and science enriching art. They can be considered signposts to connections between these parallel roads. Roads which once were one, and which are converging once more.

Definitions and remit

This volume will deal with issues involving science, art and aesthetics; it is instructive, therefore, to begin with some definitions, to aid clarity and to make explicit the specific remit of this volume in terms of what is and is not included within this discussion.

In relation to science, this is relatively straightforward – science can be defined in several ways: as a collection of knowledge or facts, derived from observations and experiments, giving rise to laws or principles; as a system for gleaning such facts, a set of rules and procedures which allow us to explore difficult questions and arrive at answers; as a way of thinking, characterised by critical thought and a need for observable and reproducible demonstrations of phenomena before an idea can be accepted; as a self-informing and self-revising system of knowledge wherein no question is forbidden or considered unaskable. Science – in its ideal form – is a way of doing things free of subjectivity, bias, agendas and presuppositions, a pure approach to uncovering knowledge and understanding built on the solid foundations of reductionism, empiricism, positivism and objectivity.

Some of the finest scientific minds of the past two centuries have defined it in various eloquent ways. Biochemist and science fiction writer Isaac Asimov describes science as a way of testing one’s ideas against the cosmos⁶. Astronomer and advocate of women in science Vera Rubin takes this idea further, stating that science gives us the freedom to challenge our preconceptions⁷ and to learn that not all teachings are true⁸. Above all, science reminds us that there are always new discoveries to be made. In the words of the pioneering chemist Marie Curie:

One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.

Letter to her brother (1894)

When it comes to defining art and aesthetics, though, things become trickier. ‘Art’ is notoriously difficult to define, and its long association with the idea of beauty has only served to muddy the waters⁹, while even the term itself requires further clarification as to whether Fine Art is being referred to or Applied Art/Information Design, which may include Visual Culture, Cognitive Art(s), Visualisation/Visuality or Visual Aesthetics. In this regard, we acknowledge that our remit here will not be all-encompassing; we will largely focus on Western examples and definitions of visual aesthetics and visual representational art – outlined below – in the subsequent chapters. In this section, we summarise the main definitions of and approaches to art and aesthetics, describing – in a general and broad overview – the key movements and schools of thought in these areas in order to clarify what aspects of these broad topics fall within the remit of the current volume.

Definitions and theories of art

What constitutes ‘Art’ and what qualifies something as a ‘work of art’ are difficult philosophical questions about which volumes have been written; we will not seek to answer these questions here. For many centuries, dating back to the great thinkers of Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, the idea that art equated to beauty (specifically beauty in nature) was influential, leading to the eventual emergence of aesthetics as an independent field of study in 1750. Such notions would later be scathingly (and gleefully) eviscerated by Tolstoy in What is Art? (1898). What Tolstoy does provide, however, is a useful definition of the purpose of art, which in his view is directed at communicating feeling and emotions – the ugly, fearful and obscene as well as the beautiful, sublime and transcendent – to the viewer by means of perception. In this he proposes an important and complementary role for science – he views the role of science as being to explain and communicate knowledge, while art seeks to express feelings, with both ultimately employed in the task of improving the lot of humank...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• 1 The Incomplete Mind
• 2 Art and Science as One
• 3 Seeing Further, Seeing Smaller
• 4 A Thousand Data Points: Art in scientific visualisation
• 5 The People Behind the Data
• 6 Imaging Art Perception
• 7 Visual Art and the Brain
• 8 Neuroaesthetics: The machine in the ghost
• Index