Mathematics and the Visual Arts

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Mathematics and the Visual Arts

• Math 102
• Spring 2003
• Professor Mark Schlatter

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La Parade (Seurat)
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(No Transcript)
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Stairway to Heaven (Ken Keller)
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A symmetry print from Escher
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The Flagellation of Christ (Piero della Francesca)
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Innerspace (Arthur Silverman)
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The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even
(Duchamp)
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Goals of this class

• Using mathematical principles (with an emphasis
  on geometry),
• analyze artwork
• create artwork

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Themes of this class

• dimension - how can artwork be described in terms
  of its dimensionality?
• validity - when does mathematical analysis have a
  valid claim in interpreting art? when is it
  misused?

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Logistics

• Syllabus
• Web site

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Proportion in portraiture

• The length of a man's outspread arms is equal to
  his height.
• . from the bottom of the chin to the top of the
  head is one eighth of his height .The greatest
  width of the shoulders contains in itself the
  fourth part of man. ... The whole hand will be
  the tenth part of the man.
• Source The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, Vol.
  1 (of a 2 vol. set in paperback) pp. 182-3,
  Dover, ISBN 0-486-22572-0.

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Proportion in portraiture

• Other sites
• The figure-drawing lab
• Marc Frantzs material on perspective and
  proportion

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Practice

• Use this work (Self-Portrait, Between the Clock
  and the Bed) by Edvard Munch to test some of the
  proportion rules.

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Questions

• What concerns would drive an artist to use these
  proportions?
• What concerns would drive an artist to break
  these proportions?
• Consider Edvard Munchs The Scream

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For next class.

• Bring a ruler and graph paper.
• Start the homework (due next Monday) on the web
  site.