Picture the renaissance – a time of enlightenment reflected in a leap in artistic development; art that has vastly outlived its creators, become a staple in our collective memory and a pride of human achievement. Now picture what the renaissance would have looked like without the avid interest of artists in the latest scientific developments – mathematics, geometry, biology, chemistry, physics. When we think about people such as Leonardo da Vinci, we do not only see them as artists, but also as scientists. Leonardo and his counterparts realised that art and science are tied together like binary stars, each feeding on each other’s forces to drive themselves forward.

When we look at art throughout the ages, we see that many of the major breakthroughs and leaps were made by artists who were in touch with the latest scientific achievements, and were bold enough to use (and sometimes abuse) science to further art. For example, the discovery (or rather the refinement) of perspective was a major contributor to the renaissance. This came in combination with a greater interest in the human body (major artists were renown to secretly experiment on corpses in order to perfect their anatomical depictions), the physics of flight and the science of nature. We observe an increased use of artistic and scientific standards, such as the golden ratio, which is present consistently throughout nature, and has become a fundamental tool for the artist to create more pleasing and realistic depictions.

On the subject of photography, we often attribute the introduction and development of photography as a key driver in the artistic revolution of the early 20th century. Without mentioning the psychological pressure that painters were subjected to when suddenly painted portraits were not the only (or the cheapest) way to immortalise one’s image, we also need to consider the use of photography by artists themselves, initially as a tool and later as an art form in itself. Degas utilised photography as a painting aid, leading to paintings that had the feeling of unposed moments in life with harshly cropped edges – more typical of a photograph than of the carefully planned paintings of the time. This boldness eventually led to these new styles being shunned by traditionalists, eventually leading to the revolutions of dada, cubism, surrealism, abstract expressionism and other art movements that started focusing on the expression of feelings over realism.

Art has always been highly competitive, and the need to push boundaries will always keep artists reverting to science in order to find new means of expression.

We can see this through the development of conceptual art in the 70s, and the use of science to create interactive art, not to mention the revolution in photography over the past 15 years through the development of digital photography and supporting tools.

Truth is, artists are some of the most avid consumers of science, and their art keeps inspiring scientists to leap to new heights, because in the end, it is imagination that drives scientific leaps – that same imagination that has driven artists throughout the centuries.

Did you know!

• Every person has a unique tongue print as well as fingerprints.
• Water has zero calories and cold water is ‘negative-calories’ since the body must warm it to body temperature.
• There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with: orange, purple and silver.
• Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
• The Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from public libraries. Meta fact!

For more trivia see: www.um.edu.mt/think

Sound bites

• When champagne (or soda water) is poured in a glass and raisins are added into it, they sink to the bottom. After some time, the raisins begin to move up and down in the glass as if they are dancing. This movement is due to the dissolved carbon dioxide in the liquid. The carbon dioxide bubbles cling to the surface of the raisins. Its wrinkles and folds afford a lot of area to the bubbles for attachment. The raisin is lifted by the bubbles to the top. When the bubbles escape into the air, the raisins sink again. The process continues until carbon dioxide is available.

• The terms ‘upper case’ and ‘lower case’ actually came to us quite recently, from the early days of the printing press. At this time, the letter blocks themselves were stored in specially organised boxes called cases. By convention, the cases containing the capital letters were stored higher than those containing the smaller versions of the letters. If one single case had compartments for all the letter blocks, the capital letters were stored in the back so that when the case was set upright, angled, they were higher, hence ‘upper case’ and ‘lower case’.
Source: http://www.todayifoundout.com/