McCabe Week 2: Math + Art


This week's lecture, articles, and videos focused on math and art with a heavy emphasis on how the two are so closely associated. For art and sciences, math helps to explain the basic concepts and rules of what actually works. At the same time, art can help demonstrate or explain some of the phenomenons as well as investigate and explore new ideas of math or science. Kate McKinnon, this week's guest speaker,  explained it well and said how art can be used to answer life's questions while incorporating math, a language that describes patterns that already exist. 

For artists who bead, math influences the design and geometric shapes that are possible to make. The origami event this week showed similarities in which origami also uses basic geometric and other math laws to create folding patterns, altogether forming a sort of 2D map to become a 3D object. Henderson relates the desires of 1920's artists and mathematicians of how both "[shared] the goal of giving visual form to spacial fourth dimension," a dimension that sparks experimentation and liberation. Overall, all three of these example show the art exploration that stems from math creating that middle ground between the two.

One example that really stood out to me was the necklace that Kate McKinnon presented. Using a basic geometric spiral pattern she created the base of what was to become her personal art piece. She attached parts of the beaded folds and created a beautiful necklace. This stood out to me because it proved how math is useful for art, but also it doesn't have to be as deep as coming up with a new scientific invention, it can be as simple as jewelry.



Altogether, I believe that math and art are meant to work together. Both are very important for scientific, artistic, and mathematical findings. There are prominent examples from history like the creation of "the Golden Ratio" and DaVinci's use of the ratio in the Mona Lisa, or more recently, the hierarchy behind shapes and dimensions in Flatland. This week was exciting because I love math and now see how much overlap there is between the two subjects, math and art. 


Resources


Henderson, Linda Dalrymple. “The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art: Conclusion.”             Leonardo. 17.3 (1984): 205-210. Print.

Landau, Elizabeth. “The Fibonacci Sequence Is Everywhere-Even the Troubled Stock Market.” Smithsonian.com,         Smithsonian Institution, 25 Mar. 2020, www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/fibonacci-sequence-stock-            market-180974487/. 

McKinnon, Kate. CONTEMPORARY GEOMETRIC BEADWORK, beadmobile.wordpress.com/. 

Saunders, Josh. “Leonardo Da Vinci Secret: Mona Lisa's Hidden Detail Discovered by High-Tech Camera.”                 Express.co.uk, Express.co.uk, 24 Sept. 2020, www.express.co.uk/news/world/1339568/leonardo-da-vinci-news-      mona-lisa-hidden-secret-detail-painting-art-camera-hairpin-hair-spt. 

Vesna, Victoria. “Mathematics-pt1-ZeroPerspectiveGoldenMean.” YouTube, 9 Apr. 2012, youtu.be/mMmq5B1LKDg.


Comments

  1. Nicole HernandezApril 11, 2021 at 2:41 PM

    Hello Lauren! I really enjoyed reading your blog. I have to agree with you that this week was an exciting week because I also enjoy math and art. I love how you included a quick overview of the origami event because you allowed some insight for the students who were not able to make it to the event. I was able to join the watch party and I really loved the video because it opened my eyes to see how amazing origami is!

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