August 22, 2018 Wednesday
Bedtime Story
John Keats' Lamia
So as we saw last night that as far as the
evidence from the recorded history goes, mathematics was directly applied to
art, or at least not in the art of perspective drawing.
Yet it is certain that both mathematics and
the use of perspective in art did exist to some extent in older civilizations
though both were certainly primitive or primordial compared to what would
blossom later.
It was in early Renaissance where
mathematics truly began to be used in art because of the belief that it was
only through mathematics that the real world and the universe could be
understood.
Greeks too had that kind of unshakeable
belief in mathematics as a description of the perfect reality though it is
uncertain how much of it was directly and intentionally applied to art.
Later as the Renaissance artists and
mathematicians showed that even the sublime art of paining and architecture
could be decoded through mathematics which reminds me of the quote ‘unweaving
the rainbow’ which has its origins in John Keats' accusation of Newton of
destroying the poetry of the rainbow.
This is the poem ‘Lamia’ that Keats wrote
in 1819 and goes like this:
“Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
We know her woof, her texture; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things.
Philosophy will clip an Angel’s wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air, and gnomèd mind –
Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made
The tender-person’d Lamia melt into a
shade.”
While Dawkins tried to counteract or refute
Keats’ view that “cold philosophy” destroys the beauty of the natural world, I
on the other hand totally agree with Keats.
The truth is that reality or the truth is
often very cold, materialistic in the sense that all there is in the universe is
matter and forces and numbers and logic.
The truths (and ‘cold’ reasoning and logic)
often are not appealing to the emotional aspect of human brain and hence the
use of the word ‘cold’ to anything that disregards or set aside the emotions.
In fact, almost by definition truth, reason
and logic ‘unweaves the rainbow’ and thus has to ‘cold’ to creatures of
emotions who evolutionary imperatives are often dependent on emotions than
anything else.
But strangely enough, sometimes (or maybe
often) mathematics adds to the art than diminishes it as seen from the influence
of mathematics on the Renaissance art.
We shall continue on our bedtime story on
it in the night to come.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
Advertisements
Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is Professor
Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
No comments:
Post a Comment