Book Review: Mathematics and Art: A Cultural History

Spotting this book really hurt my face. The resulting contortion: the half-smile - half-grimace was painful, but I had to approach the publisher for a review copy.

In the email I was honest. I fessed-up to being a mathematical hopeless lover of the discipline. So many maths teachers, so many broken pieces of chalk, so much pain and anxiety. In the early 1970s my late uncle Doug (Engineering, Liverpool University) provided some tuition at weekends. This did not translate into exam success, but he did not diminish my wonder and awe of this subject.

I mention this to set some personal background and give you a sense of my gratitude to Princeton University Press for the privilege of this tome with its 576 pages and 9.5 x 12 in. The email included my work in mental health nursing and having this blog with a small readership and twitter. I've already posted highlighting this book, but thanks to PUP and your faith.

In Waterstones, Gower St, London in February I saw a copy downstairs, so although published in 2016 this book still has currency. The hardback, sat on your knee, you know it's there. That isn't a problem, but sometimes the clearly high production standards and quality literally 'shone' in certain lighting. The quality, high legibility and art reproductions are not to be missed: 444 color + 102 b/w illustrations.

Maybe there are a few math (maths?) teachers who will pass this way and think about their teaching methods, a child's ability, aptitude and sense of wonder. Even if the mind before them doesn't 'get it', please leave that sense of wonder intact. Nurture it, nudge it as best you can to inform the other literacies and provide the momentum for lifelong learning.

There's a word missing from the title, philosophy, which Gamwell combines in a balanced, almost formulaic manner, that had me captured - enraptured from chapter 1. No! Wrong again. Even the preface works indicating the global scope to follow soon. ...

Mathematics and Art: A Cultural History

Lynn Gamwell (2016) Mathematics and Art: A Cultural History. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN: 9780691165288. p.283.

(Thank you to PUP for the review copy - more to follow.)