Book Review: v Mathematics and Art: A Cultural History
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| Mathematics + Art |
Running since May, I need to wrap this review up. As already noted this is a marvellous read and not just as a supportive friend through lockdown. Conscious of more reading and a new part-time clinical role, I could write so much more and read so much more into the text.
Gestalt and patterns are described and illustrated, which prompt me to 'see' fields of knowledge, care domains and blank/blanc space (p.263). Amid this physical and psychological data can assume their simplest forms? Piaget is significant too in the thought on whole-part distinction and our preoccupation (science's) with a unified world view. This fits with future reading on Hodges' model and how learners categorize and develop their disciplinary and professional vocabularies.
If the mathematics might deter further reading on group theory, perhaps symmetry in art and sociology might be persuasive (chap. 7)? Does chapter 8, 'Utopian Visions after World War I mean that introspection and with it reflection are futile (p.288)? There could be another model/theory of nursing here: with Psi waves, Bohr Kierkegaard (p.281 Either-Or 1843), ideas, observation and competition in physics interpreting physics the uncertain times continue. I do get a (vague?) sense that the notion of consistency is very important and of use here too (p.322). As in healthcare and science the search for evidence is relentless, it is sobering to read (again) of the limits of language and hence mathematics (p.326, Wittgenstein's tower of meaning, Figure 9.3). The book is multicultural yet reminded me of the feats of navigation, observation and collective memory across Oceania.
In my notes, I picked out Karl Gerstner's, Aperspective 1: The Endless Spiral of a Right Angle and looking for an image to post here found an Aeon post:
How physics and maths helped create modernist painting
If you visit the post above the relevance of Aperspective 1 to me is not necessarily obvious, yet Hodges' model is full of axes, right-angles, symmetries and asymmetries. Recently, working through a little angst, I've been writing about Hodges' model from a definitive perspective. If there was a manual what would it 'say'? The center of the model is a fusion of right angles and disciplinary domains. What is involved, implied, communicated in the many forms of crossings (p.386)?
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| A.R. Penck: 'The Crossing' (1963) |
Michel Serres is quoted:
"The ordered structure blew up." p.410.
With a long-standing interest in visualisation in the humanities, I had written Levi Strauss - maths in social sciences in my notes.
Bourbaki, Sontag the names come thick-and-fast - more reading.
This is an amazing book, the content, quality, index, references. I'm going to close here, but may return in future (there's 556 pages and the end notes are excellent too). As I pick up another book, a great find is another disciplinary bridge (Fechner, Psychophysics, 1860) more recently rediscovered in Buddhism and neuroscience?
| Psycho- | -Physics |
(Sincere thanks to PUP and John Wiley for the review copy.)
orcid.org/0000-0002-0192-8965