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Science Matters
A weekly feature (begun December 2004), supported by the
Bryn Mawr College Center for Science in Society,
that highlights current news in the area of science and culture,
and connects it with relevant materials on Serendip as well
as Center activities.
For the week of March 22, 2005: The Chemistry
of Art
& Beauty
Online
forum for continuing discussion | Archives
"Venetian
Grinds - The secret behind Italian Renaissance painters'
brilliant palettes"
While sifting
through 15th- and 16th-century documents at the state
archives in Venice, Louisa Matthew came across an ancient
inventory from a Venetian seller of artist's pigments.
The dusty sheet of paper, dated 1534, was buried in
a volume of inventories of deceased persons' estates.
This inventory of artists' materials could hold the
answer to a question that had long vexed conservation
scientists: How did Venetian Renaissance painters create
the strong, clear, and bright colors that make objects
and figures in their paintings appear to glow?
Read
more ... |
The Stuff of Art
A one-semester course on art and chemistry offered in
2004, jointly supported by the Center for Science in
Society and Center for Visual Culture, that delved into
the chemical aspects of paint materials. See especially
Temperas
and Stories.
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Beauty:
A Conversation Between Chemistry and Culture
A new course (Spring 2005), designed by professors
of chemistry and literature, exploring the interdisciplinary
topic of "beauty," ranging from the molecular to the
political levels, with considerable time spent inbetween
on the matter of aesthetics. The arc of the conversation
will occur in four stages: Exploring Form: What is
Beautiful?; Apprehending the Physical World: The Structures
of Nature; Appreciating Beautiful Objects--What Moves
Us, How and Why; and The Shaping Work of Politics;
or the Ethical Turn: On Beauty and Being Just. Read more...
Artistic
License: Color Vision and Color Theory
Imagine yourself in an art museum. You wander slowly
from cold room to cold room, analyzing colored canvases
on stark white walls. When you reach a particular
work, do you prefer to stand back and take everything
in at once? Or do you move so close to the painting
that the individual brushstrokes become apparent?
Several different sensory processes occur in your
brain during this trip to the art museum; the majority
of them involve visual inputs. How does your brain
put together all the information that your eyes receive?
This raises questions ranging from depth of field
to color. The ideas of color perception and color
theory are interesting ones. How do humans account
for color and does it truly exist? Read
more...
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On the lighter side...
I found I could say things
with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other
way - things I had no words for. ~Georgia
O'Keeffe
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These pages have been created
by Selene Platt in consultation
with Paul Grobstein.
Please submit suggestions for other topics to explore in "Science Matters" to Selene
Platt.
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