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ART AND SCIENCE PARALLEL PATHS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN THOUGHT. IS ART AN ANTICIPATION OF THE SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES?

Renzo Campanella, Flavia Dragoni

Abstract

Both in art and in science one can identify paths of development that lead in the same direction. This parallel development can be proposed on the basis of a comparison between the evolution of painting and the development of the theories of physics, recognizing, for example, a conceptual parallelism between the birth of perspective and the Galilean scientific method, as well as between impressionism and quantum mechanics. Another case in which it is evident that art and science move in the same direction is the drastic change in the perception of space-time operated simultaneously with the relativity of Einstein and the birth of Cubism. These considerations may however remain mere speculations if not supported by observations that are in some way measurable. These can be found in the "drip" paintings by Jackson Pollock, who intended to deal with the rhythms of nature. His paintings are perfectly describable as fractals, although the definition of fractal geometry, which is certainly the most accurate way to describe natural phenomena mathematically, was given by Mandelbrot twenty years after Pollock’s death. All this suggests that human thought can evolve in unison, albeit in different ways in the different fields in which it expresses itself, and that the artistic description of nature can anticipate the scientific description.

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