September 18, 2018 Tuesday
Bedtime Story
Flagellation of Christ - 'The Greatest Small Painting in the World'
Well, let us not digress too much and
return to Piero and his rendering of the Flagellation of Christ which in his
case he sets in an open gallery at an intermediate distance from the viewer.
Piero’s painting of Flagellation of Christ
was carried somewhere around 1455 to 1460 which is the depiction of the
Biblical Passion of the Christ which refers to the short final period of Jesus.
The last few nights of bedtime stories
should have given you sufficient understanding of the Passion of the Christ and
its historical significance.
As Christ is being flagellated there, in
the forefront are shown three male figures on the right-hand side dressed in
upper-class Roman garbs, deeply engrossed in some kind of conversation,
completely ignoring the heinous activity taking place in the background which
surely further adds to the cruelty of these Jewish men.
The perspective part is used for the actual
flagellation with Jesus being the vanishing point and the center point where
all the lines of the floor and the roof of the open gallery are converging.
It is a two-frame painting or a diptych
though not a classical diptych in what is understood but definitely a two-frame
one with activities going on in forefront and rear, with linear perspective
used for the rear crucial element.
The British art historian Kenneth Clark who
is perhaps most well known for his television documentary series of 1969
Civilization: A Personal View by Kenneth Clark and who is also the author of
the book titled ‘Piero della Francesca’ (1951) called this painting ‘the
greatest small painting in the world’.
The next major work in the area of
perspective and mathematics once again came from Italy somewhere around 1500.
It was the book De divina proportione (On
the Divine Proportion) written by Luca Pacioli in collaboration with Leonardo
da Vinci.
All the works that we have considered so
far that relate the art of linear perspective to mathematics were primarily art
and less of mathematics.
But this book ‘On the Divine Proportion’ is
foremost a treatise of mathematics with secondary applications of it to both
art and architecture.
We have surely all heard about the famous
Leonardo da Vinci in spite of the massive temporal divide that separates us
from him and that itself speaks volumes about his genius.
But who is this other guy called Luca
Pacioli and what is his story?
Luca Pacioli was a mathematician and friar
(pure mathematicians almost never tend to be famous).
One can consider this as the Postulate of
Pan narrans that: “If any character – either living or dead - is well known to
you and popular amongst your three good friends or acquaintances, than it is
almost certain that the person in question is not a pure mathematician.”
I am sure this postulate cannot be proven
but then most would not insist on its proof since most apes are not gifted with
minds that demand mathematical exactitude.
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.
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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:
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