Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty — a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show. The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry. Music Examples of the use of mathematics in music include the stochastic music of Iannis Xenakis, counterpoint of Johann Sebastian Bach, polyrhythmic structures (as in Igor Stravinskys The Rite of Spring), the Metric modulation of Elliott Carter, permutation theory in serialism beginning with Arnold Schoenberg, and application of Shepard tones in Karlheinz Stockhausens Hymnen. Visual arts Examples of the use of mathematics in the visual arts include applications of chaos theory and fractal geometry to computer-generated art, symmetry studies of Leonardo da Vinci, projective geometries in development of the perspectivetheory of Renaissance art, grids in Op art, optical geometry in the camera obscura of Giambattista della Porta, and multiple perspective in analytic cubism and futurism.
Posted on: Fri, 11 Apr 2014 12:56:07 +0000
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