Art and Science Are Disivlpes That Can Walk Hand in Hand

• Journal List
• EMBO Rep
• v.xx(two); 2019 February
• PMC6362349

EMBO Rep. 2019 Feb; 20(2): e47061.

Art and science

Intersections of art and science through fourth dimension and paths forward

Lian Zhu

¹ Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, Usa,

Yogesh Goyal

² Department of Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, U.s.a.,

In the 19^th century, the Spanish neurologist and pathologist Santiago Ramón y Cajal studied brain tissue and cells of the nervous arrangement through a microscope. His observations not only led to important scientific discoveries, which somewhen won him a Nobel Prize, simply also to sketches that would beautify both the pages of textbooks and the walls of New York art galleries. The medieval mathematician Leonardo of Pisa, also known as Fibonacci, once pondered a puzzle about an idealized rabbit population. His solution was an eponymous sequence of numbers that are now widely found in dentistry to photography and music composition. Ramón y Cajal and Fibonacci were simultaneously impactful to science and art. History is rife with many more than examples of scientists who were also artists and who take contributed to both science and art in unique and often unexpected ways.

… Although artists and scientists are both driven to observe and create, they largely reside in dissimilar cultural spheres…

Today, the relationship between art and science in our guild is more than complex: Although artists and scientists are both driven to observe and create, they largely reside in different cultural spheres—sometimes brought together serendipitously, other times intentionally. Information technology is impossible to generalize relationships between fine art and science since neither is a fully defined nor homogenous category 1. Instead, we present vignettes on the historical and gimmicky relationship betwixt visual art and science, and offer perspectives on the connectedness betwixt the two with respect to their inputs (tools and processes) and their outputs (objects and communication of ideas). Finally, we propose ideas for how our society can cultivate these relationships and what might be gained from it.

Art and science through time

Art and science have coexisted, often duplicate from each other, across fourth dimension and space. A wealth of early documented examples comes from the Islamic culture, where art and scientific discipline joined in intricate star‐shaped architectural geometries, and the use of "Nur" (light) and material science to pattern utensils and lettering in manuscripts 2. During the Renaissance, the Italian polymath Leonardo Da Vinci was simultaneously a painter, sculptor, engineer, botanist, and scientist. Indeed, the term "Renaissance man" would come to exist synonymous with a person with many talents and knowledge. The separation of art and science into different cultures in the West took place during the 19^th century, which incidentally or consequently coincides with coining of the term "scientist" in the mid‐1800s 3. Both disciplines share their origins in the representation and estimation of nature, only, over time, their methodologies diverged, and the scientific schoolhouse of thought became largely driven by specialization and hypothesis‐based inquiries 3. Art, in plow, developed its ain schools and methods, from classical fine art, which tended to detect and imitate nature, to branches of impressionism, cubism, and expressionism. Nonetheless, at that place are many places of convergence between the ii, both in the past and today.

Fine art and science both render ideas near the world into a class that allows the viewer to connect to the thought.

During the Renaissance, sketches of plants, animals, homo anatomy, and stars done in lieu of cameras were not merely cute pieces of art, only as well forms that required extraordinary technique and skill in order to communicate their observations. Across these pieces is an idea that is central to both art and science: the primacy of observation and interpretation. As Peter W. Parshall and David Landau write in The Renaissance Print: "Authentic visual representation was more only a technical accomplishment. Information technology was a highly specialized course of observation… Making illustrations was a way of checking facts, and past mid‐century it was existence supported by other means also. Public and private botanical gardens were being planted, and collections of dried specimens were being assembled into herbaria. In such a climate the illustrated herbal was bound to become the standard point of reference for scholars attempting to devise different schemes of classification".

In that location are many examples of how art and scientific discipline intermingled based on ascertainment and interpretation, ranging from a physical object based on both engineering science and artistic pattern to an informative visual piece that acts as a communication tool. An example of the erstwhile is 1 of the world's architectural marvels, La Sagrada Familia, which Antoni Gaudí designed and started edifice in Barcelona in 1883. Gaudí was inspired by geometrical features found in nature and used his observations of nature's organizing principles to design the physical structure of the church. Gaudí himself said, "I am a geometrician, meaning I synthesize" (from La Sagrada Familia website). This arroyo is reflected in the unique branching tree columns and staircases with seashell‐similar curves placed through the church.

An example of communication tools is the sketches and paintings of insects and plants by the 17^th‐century naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian. Her drawings were disruptive at the time, because they were based on observations that had non yet been inside the mainstream print culture. In item, her sketch of a giant spider devouring a hummingbird was oftentimes criticized during the Victorian era as beingness impossible, but was later confirmed. For Merian, ascertainment, science, and fine art were all parts of the same process, and her paintings were both a mode to communicate and understand the daring and (then) surprising process of metamorphosis (Fig1).

Metamorphosis of a caterpillar to a butterfly

One of many sketches of Maria Sibylla Merian, where she studied the metamorphosis of insects, and published in 1705 under the proper noun Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium. https://goo.gl/xfGECC Public Domain.

Art and science both render ideas about the globe into a form that allows the viewer to connect to the thought. An observation, whether of a spider, a prison cell, or human being nature, is necessary, but not sufficient to upshot in a meaningful work of art or a scientific finding. It is the interpretation, the focusing of the photographic camera lens, the telling of a story, the choice of what part of the observation will be rendered and explicated, that gives life to it. This coaction underlies much of the mod scientific methods and processes of art, as both artists and scientists do not comprehensively re-create, but rather interpret and curate what they come across into something meaningful and relevant.

Gimmicky integration of art and science

The line that separates fine art and scientific discipline in the mod age remains a superficial one; at the cadre, artists and scientists observe and interpret the earth around them, though they may use different methods and expressions. This artificial cultural divide is prevalent in our order, but some visionaries and institutions are consciously bridging information technology. For example, medical schools are get-go to comprise art into their curriculum. In fact, there is evidence that the use of art can help medical students "apply their observational and interpretive skills" and "accept the facts that ambiguity is inherent to art, life and clinical experience and in that location tin can be more than ane answer to many questions" 4.

Once the need to reestablish the shut connection betwixt fine art and science had become apparent, other institutions began creating centers and retrieve tanks for this purpose 5. Two pioneering examples are the Heart for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT and Experiments in Art and Applied science, a collaboration betwixt New York artists and scientists at Bell Telephone Laboratories. This momentum benefits from a growing interest by scientific journals and magazines in publishing manufactures and defended issues that bring together art and science. The founding of the journal Leonardo, which publishes fine art and science studies, was another important step in this direction by creating a dedicated academic space for artists and scientists to collaborate and share ideas.

But to make sense of the information, we demand more artistic approaches, and fine art can lend new representations of previously incomprehensible forms to correspond data in transformative means.

More recent institutional endeavors in Europe include the Wellcome Trust and CERN. Wellcome Trust has initiated multiple support programs, most notably the Wellcome collection, which uses exhibitions and podcasts among other mediums to develop substantive connections between science, medicine, and fine art. CERN invites artists to spend time at the establishment, facilitating close collaborations with scientists to understand and represent the construction of the universe. This desire of modern artists to ameliorate understand nature, life, and the universe is reminiscent of the past. During the Renaissance, Albrecht Dürer, the artist who later inspired D'Arcy Thompson's landmark volume On Growth and Course, prepared some of the first drawings and woodcut maps of stars and constellations. Dürer's illustrations fabricated it into generations of scientific texts and go on to inspire educators, scientists, and artists alike. Threads, such as those betwixt Dürer's drawings, Thompson'south piece of work on mathematical biology, and modern educators and artists, oft be across disciplines and span centuries. In plow, they enable latent and emerging connections to take a radical and lasting bear on.

An important characteristic of the modernistic merging of art and science is the understanding and communication of abstruse and higher‐social club ideas. Like Merian, who communicated her observations of insects and plants using sketches, Tadashi Tokieda, a mathematical physicist at Stanford Academy, creates creative demonstrations of abstract mathematical concepts. Tokieda, a painter and mathematician, uses his unique background to create elegant toys that non only demonstrate exciting, realizable phenomena from his research, but also help to develop new hypotheses. David Goodsell, a structural biologist at The Scripps Research Constitute, uses watercolors and computer‐aided illustrations to present the world of cellular structures and molecules. His work gives admission to the nanoscale structures of life that would otherwise invisible to human eye.

Reciprocally, artists also use abstract scientific drawings and concepts to create art. The steel sculptures past Edward Tufte, a pioneer of data visualization techniques, are non merely "abstract glinting art", merely much like historical sketches of organisms and stars, besides an authentic representation of concrete principles, including some that are inspired past the diagrams of Richard Feynman six.

... collaborations betwixt fine art and science can besides lead to deeper, less directly tangible ideas.

Another dimension of the gimmicky integration between art and science is the use of engineering. Digital tools, including software such as Inkscape and Adobe Illustrator, have non only go a pop platform to create and share art, but are likewise driving technical improvements. Similarly, recent developments in semi‐automated computational platforms let to create and dynamically revise illustrations of natural processes based on new findings. This arroyo is likely to advance the pace at which club at large learns new concepts. More advanced applications of technology in the art include the use of artificial intelligence (AI)‐based robots every bit a tool. Interestingly, this has led to a current argue 7 every bit to whether such technologies tin can piece of work autonomously without the intervention of artists themselves.

The collaborative efforts of contemporary science and art can besides have important consequences for society through enabling communication of ideas and access to nature. For instance, Foldscope, a microscope that costs less than a dollar 8, was created using the principles of origami, the Japanese fine art of paper folding (Fig2A and B). This microscope has a transformative impact, especially in developing countries, where its ease of associates and low cost open up the window into the microscopic globe (Fig2C and D). This not just increases the available repertoire of images and scientific information at the grassroots level, but as well stimulates interest in nature photography (Fig2D). Similarly, Tokieda's demonstrations and videos of mathematical concepts as well as Goodsell's illustrations of protein structures are freely bachelor on the Net. The work of Fabian Oefner, a Swiss artist, who uses scientific concepts including electricity and magnetism to engineer beautiful fourth dimension‐lapse art, is the flip side of the same money. Oefner makes scientific concepts attainable to a broader audience by making "the invisible effects of the natural sciences known". In addition to addressing access to scientific discipline, these collaborations can also impact on global and societal issues including climate change, migration and displacement, diseases, and pollution. In these endeavors, whether through photography, recycled waste, glass piece of work, metal scaffolds, or knitting patterns, science and art jointly plow to pressing issues and present creative solutions.

Foldscope: Inspiring gild by joining art and science

A schematic depicting how joint ideas (A) from art and science resulted in the creation of Foldscope (B). In plow, people from all age‐groups (C) from across the globe are using this low‐cost microscope to capture images of scientific and creative merit (D). Images captured cover a broad range including (left to right) crystalized citric acid, silver berry scaly hair, onion skin cells, and feathers. The images used in this figure are kindly provided past Manu Prakash and Rebecca Konte from team Foldscope.

An important feature of the modern merging of fine art and science is the understanding and communication of abstruse and higher‐club ideas.

Unraveling complexity through active collaborations

Our newly caused ability to collect big amounts of data has revolutionized many fields from medicine to urban planning. By way of example, nosotros can at present take sub‐micron resolution images of how molecules move in a cell. Similar an artist sketching a rare plant species, these images communicate aspects of nature that we had non seen. Simply to make sense of the data, we need more creative approaches, and art tin can lend new representations of previously incomprehensible forms to stand for data in transformative means. In fact, scientists take already begun to take inspiration from the work of artists such as the charts Charles Minard drew of Napoleon's march (Figiii) and Pablo Picasso's lithographs (Figfour) to better sympathise and effectively communicate the multidimensional features of their data nine.

Charles Minard's map of Napoleon'due south war confronting Russia of 1812

The two‐dimensional chart covers multidimensional data including temperature, dates, location, direction, and the number of Napoleon's men. Wikipedia/Public Domain.

Scientific inspiration from Pablo Picasso'due south lithographs

Parallels between progressive abstractions of Picasso's lithographs of bulls and agreement the 3‐dimensional organization of sixteen cells inside a Drosophila egg. This is one of the many examples of the abstract representation and visualization of complex scientific miracle where scientists take taken inspiration from art. This epitome is provided courtesy of Jasmin Imran Alsous and is besides a winner of the Autodesk Art and Biology Award at VIZBI, 2016.

An interesting area where art has helped to detangle the complication of data is studies of the structure and connectivity of the man encephalon, which started as early on as in the late 1800s. Danielle Bassett, a neuroscientist and MacArthur Fellow, views her multidimensional network data with an creative lens by enlisting artists and designers to assistance visualizing brain connectivity. This squad recreates neural networks in a physical ("volumetric") space, to see the data in a fashion they could not before while producing a piece of art. Such partnerships are also inspired and enabled by cutting‐edge technologies such as virtual reality (VR) and rapid prototyping techniques, which are condign increasingly accessible and inexpensive. Martin Kemp, a leading expert in the field of art and science, argues that the power to imagine and to make sense of things in iii dimensions at a loftier level is uncommon. Therefore, it is valuable to have methods that enable the creation of 3D and simulated renderings of the visual works. In this style, every bit artists and scientists share and employ these technologies to develop their thinking and projects, their relationship may also develop further.

While this may raise the impression that art and science are natural partners, it remains an open up question how they tin can meet and engage with each in this age of hyper‐specialization, where it has get increasingly difficult for individuals to be trained in multiple fields. This can be addressed by early career support through doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships that promote the collaboration and exploration of art and scientific discipline. This would not only lead to new ideas, only also assistance create new human being phenomena that upshot from having experts trained in both. One inspiring instance of this new blazon of skillful is Matteo Farinella who, after receiving such a fellowship for his doctoral work, became a neuroscientist and an illustrator of comic books.

In a parallel vein, active support of collaborations between artists and scientists would cultivate spaces where people of different specialties can work and larn from each other. In fact, scientific laboratories and corporate offices are now formalizing positions for resident artists. Dedicated business initiatives such as Digizyme, a company which makes 3D animations of molecular processes, create spaces for both skill sets to work with each other. Reciprocally, art institutes may promote scientist‐in‐residence positions, as is already being practiced by The Institute of Contemporary Fine art in London, Britain. Such positions will not only lead to the sharing of tools between artists and scientists, just also of ideas and observations. Also, scientific discipline–art conferences, such as VIZBI, workshops, and competitions, can play an of import role in creating a platform for artists and scientists to meet, discuss, formally suggest ideas, and initiate long‐term collaborations. Princeton University'due south Art of Science Initiative has already resulted in multiple cross‐disciplinary collaborations (personal advice, previous lead organizer JA Alsous). Some other contemporary shared phenomena are online movements, where enthusiastic individuals such as Julia Buntaine, an creative person and neuroscientist, are leveraging social media platforms to inspire collective participation.

Although nosotros accept focused on physical ways in which an artistic lens can be beneficial for looking at scientific questions, collaborations between art and scientific discipline can also pb to deeper, less directly tangible ideas. Maybe, the greatest potential lies in their ability to clarify societal and universal questions. For instance, artistic representations tin as well elucidate changes in societal disparity; a contempo study reported that children are drawing more female characters equally scientists than before x. In this fourth dimension of political doubtfulness and fear of the unknown, art (e.g., comic books and graphic novels) addressing scientific concepts such as global health can assist us to bring scientific discoveries into homes, increasing access and creating an ownership and belief in scientific discipline that extends far beyond the scientific community.

Concluding remarks

At their core, fine art and scientific discipline are both about ascertainment and interpretation. Whether it is by using scientific data or technologies such every bit AI and VR to create art or past using fine art to empathize and communicate scientific discipline, both work paw in hand. Lodge has accomplished a slap-up deal of specialization that has allowed us to increment the depth of our studies and the pace of our technological progress. Past connecting to fine art through conversations and projects, scientists gain new tools to visualize natural phenomena and communicate its complexities. These tools will enable scientists, like medical students studying art, to create wiser and more empathetic technologies that are considerate of not merely what they can practise, but how they might bear upon gild. At the same time, we promise that artists will continue to use emerging scientific technologies as tools for their work and to be inspired past scientific observations of nature, whether it is molecules, algorithms, or celestial bodies. Our vision is that their synergy will enable united states of america to improve empathize and apply our piece of work to urgent societal and universal questions of admission, disinterestedness, and global citizenship. In order for artists and scientists to admission these rich futures, we need development of infrastructural and systemic changes to bring forth collaborations and exchanges of knowledge. Our lives are enriched through understanding the universe and more importantly our place within information technology. A joint venture of art and scientific discipline is an of import, even indispensable, step in that direction.

Disharmonize of interest

The authors declare that they take no conflict of interest.

Box: Farther reading

For more on the intersection between art, science, and science communication:

• Kemp M (2006) Seen/unseen: fine art, science, and intuition from Leonardo to the Hubble telescope. Oxford Academy Printing

• Kemp M (2011) Leonardo. Oxford Academy Press

• Alda A (2017) If I understood you, would I have this expect on my confront?: my adventures in the art and science of relating and communicating

• Unabridged event: Abbott A, Rutherford A (2005) Artists on Science: Scientists on Fine art (Ed.). Nature 434: 293–293

• Bullot NJ, Seeley WP, Davies S (2017) Art and scientific discipline: a philosophical sketch of their historical complication and codependence. J Aesthet Art Crit 75: 453–463

For extended reading on examples covered in the master text including Fibonacci series, Albrecht Dürer, David Goodsell, and D'Arcy Thompson:

• Ricketts RM (1982) The biologic significance of the divine proportion and Fibonacci series. Am J Orthod 81: 351–370

• Bartrum Grand, Grass Yard, Koerner JL, Kuhlemann U (2002) Albrecht Dürer and his legacy : the graphic work of a Renaissance artist. British Museum

• Thompson DW (1942) On growth and form

• Goodsell DS (2016) Diminutive evidence: seeing the molecular footing of life

Further literature on digital and AI‐based fine art:

• Wands B (2006) Art of the digital age. Thames & Hudson

• Johnson GT, Autin L, Al‐Alusi M, Goodsell DS, Sanner MF, Olson AJ (2015) cellPACK: a virtual mesoscope to model and visualize structural systems biology. Nat Methods 12: 85–91

• Coeckelbergh M (2017) Tin can machines create fine art? Philos Technol 30: 285–303

More literature on data visualization techniques:

• Tufte ER (1990) Envisioning data. Graphics Printing

• Tufte ER (1997) Visual explanations: images and quantities, evidence and narrative. Graphics Printing

• Zastrow Chiliad (2015) Information visualization: Science on the map. Nature 519: 119–120

• Frankel F, DePace AH (2012) Visual strategies: a practical guide to graphics for scientists and engineers. Yale University Press

More examples on incorporating fine art training in medicine:

• Gurwin J, Revere KE, Niepold S, Bassett B, Mitchell R, Davidson Due south, DeLisser H, Binenbaum Thou (2018) A randomized controlled written report of fine art observation training to improve medical student ophthalmology skills. Ophthalmology 125: 8–14

• Scott PA (2000) The relationship between the arts and medicine. Med Humanit 26: 3–8

• Stuckey HL, Nobel J (2010) The connection between art, healing, and public health: a review of current literature. Am J Public Health 100: 254–263

Acknowledgements

We give thanks Martin Kemp, Brigitte Nerlich, and Puneeth Chakravarthula for helpful discussions and pointing u.s. to interesting examples and thoughts nosotros had not considered before. We give thanks Sir Keith Burnett, Denis Wirtz, Anna Mendlin, Earle Havens, Megan Wheeler, Alice Tang, Ian Mellis, Jasmin Alsous, Connie Jiang, Deborah Schlein, José Ferreira, Orsolya Symmons, Arjun Raj, Ruth Arnold, and Paul Villoutreix for providing suggestions to improve the manuscript. Fifty.Z. would like to thank the NSF graduate fellowship (DGE‐1656466) for their generous support. Y.G. would like to thank the Schmidt Science Fellows program, in partnership with the Rhodes Trust, for their generous support. 50.Z. and Y.G. would like to thank the NSF grant MCB‐1411898 and Wallace Marshall for providing the initial platform to discuss our ideas. Y.Thou. would too like to thank Stas Shvartsman for providing the freedom and encouragement to pursue his interest in fine art and science during his graduate studies at Princeton Academy. Y.Thousand. would like to acknowledge the Raj Lab surroundings, which encourages having pixel‐perfect figure alignments and using rigorous visualization techniques to present scientific results.

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Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6362349/

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