Art and Science

Two years ago I was at an art fair in the park. One of the booths was from shop calling itself “fine art.” And not to say that the painting sin the tent were unpleasant, but I couldn’t tell what the painter was trying to say. So I asked.

The painter (and I’ll avoid the term artist) She said that she likes to let the viewer find their own meaning. This is not art. It may be a pretty image. But art needs something to say. It has to emote, or tell. Fine art, conveys a idea that the viewer understands; the better the artist the clearer the telling.

I see this as a common element in society. Would be writers string random words together, add some vulgarity and call it poetry. We went from the little engine that “thought it could” to “I want to be so I am.” And with it we loose meaning. Art, science, law, morality are all victims to this decline of meaning.

Consider the “true arte,” swordsmanship. Not a fine art to be sure, but a skill that requires training and deliberacy of intent. One cannot be a good swordsman without active training and skill. The same is true of painting, writing, sculpture … and the list goes on.

And before one gets the impression that fine art is trivial, therefore it doesn’t matter if it looses meaning and significance, I would ask that the impact of the artist’s eye be considered. Which brings me to the tie in to this blog.

In the course of my scientific career I have had the opportunity to work with some great product designers, researchers and criminalists. On the surface, it is tempting to say that the crossover is in the aesthetic. But it goes beyond that. Art and science are both about definition. They seek, among other things to answer the question what. And it is here that they cross over. And it is here that the sloppy impression of “fine art” is hurting the whole of society.

As a scientist, I have been able to hold my own with the top minds in many fields. I am by no means claiming the same skill or knowledge as men and women with decades more training and experience. But, I could understand what they did and how they did it well enough to follow or reproduce what they did.

Some of them follow an Aristotelian approach to definition. Others took a more conciliate approach. And some just compare to what they already know. But there is another way to define a scene.

One criminalist’s approach was different. He looked at a crime scene aesthetically. What should or should not be there was the discriminating factor in how he searched. Unlike most of his peers, he was an artist not a scientist, a Flemish Realist painter. And I came to believe that his approach was much more indicative, of his painting than an outward in definition.

More importantly, unlike most of the experts I had worked with over the years, I could not reproduce what he did. So, I decided to try and learn to think like a painter, add this to my tool box.

So, I have been trying to teach myself to paint. Start with the outline, build the shadow, then add the detail layer by layer. So of the detail in one layer will be hidden by subsequent layers, but they are still important as in some way they will shape and shade the final image.

This way of defining is different from my normal analytical approach. As a scientist, I think from general to specific and this was going from specific to general. But it in building an image this way, I found that I was getting as sense of what should be there. And by extrapolation, what should not.

I may never be a good painter, but the exercise has taught me a new perspective and isn’t that kinda the point?

Peace
Charles

p.s. If you want to see some of the paintings: http://www.prestons-world.com/abouttheauthor/artgallery.html