Art and Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light - Hardcover

Shlain, Leonard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0688097529 ISBN 13: 9780688097523

Publisher: William Morrow & Co, 1991

Synopsis

Studies the way science has influenced the artistic imagination throughout history, such as the parallel between Einstein's theory of relativity and the work of Cezanne, Monet, and the other Impressionists

About this title

About the Author:

Leonard Shlain is a surgeon who practices in San Francisco. He lives in Mill Valley, California. He can be reached at lshlain@aol.com.

From Kirkus Reviews:

A California surgeon explores the striking parallels in the evolution of Western art and science in this enlightening exploration of where ideas come from and how they enter the consciousness of a culture. Though art and science are traditionally considered antithetical disciplines--with art dependent on intuition for its development and science on logic and sequential thinking--both nevertheless rely on an initial burst of inspiration regarding the nature of reality, and in Western culture the two have followed separate but remarkably similar paths. Shlain offers detailed anecdotes from the history of Western culture--from the ancient Greeks' penchant for single-melody choruses and blank rectangles, through the fragmented art and science of the Medieval period, to modern art's redefinition of reality and the relativity revolution in science--to illustrate how major movements in art have generally preceded scientific breakthroughs based on equivalent ideas, despite the artists and scientists involved having remained largely ignorant of one another's work. Shlain's suggestion that scientists have not so much been inspired by artists but have received initial inspiration from the same source--bringing to mind the possibility of a universal mind from which such ideas spring--is an intriguing one that offers a new window through which to view the dissemination of knowledge and ideas. A fascinating and provocative discussion--slow in coalescing but worth the wait. (Seventy-two b&w photographs and 15 diagrams.) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow & Co
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0688097529
• ISBN 13: 9780688097523
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 480