Origins

Chapter II. Origins of the Scientific Art. Brief history of art and the application of science.

2.1 The Chambers of Wonders. The curiosity about the exotic, fossils and rocks. Automata. The paleontological illustrations. Charles Knight and Gerhard Heilmann.

2.2 Study of Anatomy. The Australian Rock Art. Leonardo da Vinci. Notable painters in medical issues in the XVII, XVIII and XIX centuries. Rembrandt, Adriaen Backer, Jan van Neck, Frans Denys, Michiel Jansz, Thomas de Keyser, Gabriel Cornelius von Max, Christiaan Coevershoff, Thomas Eakins, Johann Zoffany, Enrique Simonet, Cézanne. The anatomical sculpture of study. Primitive medicine. Ernst Haeckel and Santiago Ramón y Cajal.

2.3 The astronomical observation since antiquity. Science against religion. Heliocentrism and the influence of the observation of the cosmos in the societies of the XV-XX centuries.

2.4 The Landscape. Kind of landscapes. Celestial painting in the XIX and XX centuries.

2.5 The Vision of the Future. Futurism Art Decó, Googie and Neofuturism. High-Tech and Bionic architecture.

2.6 Mathematics in Architecture. Symmetry and Geometry. Visionary Artists. Boullée and Ledoux. Impossible objects. Oscar Reutersvärd and Roger Penrose. Escher. Perpetual mobile.

2.7 Artistic manifestations. Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Literature, Music, Photography, Film and Videogames.

Although modern scientific art is the product of a society sufficiently advanced as that of the 21st century, there are previous manifestations that can be considered antecedents. Even if they go back one or five centuries, it is important to take them into account.

About the origins of paleontological art, the cameras of wonders, or cabinets of curiosities, were places where the rich people kept their collection of unique objects from the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdom, or from different distant lands. They exhibited objects that showed interest in science, since they were not only born in an era in which the encyclopedia was booming, but thanks to these collections there were advancements in the study of fields such as biology and paleontology, due to that many of the objects were fossils. The interest in paleontology began here, and not only interest, but study. Of course, there were not only collections of exotic objects, but also paintings. The Chambers of Wonders are the ancestors of the museums that would be born in the 19th century. In fact, many of the objects that these rooms kept were relocated to natural history museums and art museums. The collections were divided into artificialia, naturalia, exotica and scientifica according to their category. Among the best-known examples of chamber of wonders are the Chamber of King Ferdinand II of Austria, at the Castle of Ambras, the Chamber of Rudolf II, his nephew, or the Kunstkamera of St. Petersburg, created by Peter the Great.

It is also important to mention the paleontological illustrations, being Charles R. Knight and Gerhard Heilmann the pioneers, back in the nineteenth century. Charles R. Knight stands out with illustrations of prehistoric animals, and even sculptures. Gerhard Heilmann devoted himself to the study of birds, highlighting his book The Origins of Birds, about the evolution of birds.

The origins of biological art could go back even to prehistory. The Australian rock paintings known as the X-ray style could be considered as a first manifestation of the representation of anatomy. In these paintings human figures and animals are represented both on the outside and inside, representing the skeleton and even some organs. Leonardo da Vinci, an Italian man who lived during the Renaissance, devoted part of his studies to human anatomy. It is known that he used corpses in his studies, something that at the time was not only frowned upon but also illegal. His anatomical illustrations are very precise thanks to this.

Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries there are several painters who represent anatomy lessons or autopsies. Among them, there are Rembrandt, Adriaen Backer, Jan van Neck, Frans Denys, Michiel Jansz, Thomas de Keyser, Gabriel Cornelius von Max, Christiaan Coevershoff, Thomas Eakins, Johann Zoffany, Enrique Simonet, and even Cézanne. Perhaps the best known is Rembrandt, with his famous Dr. Tulp's Anatomy Lesson, where a group of men dressed in baroque fashion witness how the doctor is inspecting the arm of a body.

About the anatomical sculpture, in Madrid there was an exhibition entitled Arte y Carne (Art and Meat), which exhibited anatomical wax sculptures. The exhibition began in a room brilliantly set where an operating room of the time was staged, together with surgical instruments. There were many sculptures, not only of the body as a whole but also of organs, and even fragments of organs. Perhaps the most impressive sculptures are those of pregnant women where the fetus can be seen, highlighting the so-called Parturient. There were fetuses in different positions, and muscle sculptures with great detail.

Still within the field of biology, Ernst Haeckel and Santiago Ramón y Cajal stand out. Ernst Haeckel was a German doctor who expanded Darwin's theories. He made engravings and watercolors, many collected in the book Kunstformen der Natur, of clear influence for biological and even paleontological artists. Santiago Ramón y Cajal was a prominent doctor for his studies on the nervous system, with illustrations where recreates the neural connections.

The origins of astronomical art can be traced back to the interest that humans have had in observing the firmament since the beginning of time. About the distant antiquity, only to emphasize that it was Pythagoras that spoke of the harmony of the spheres, which is based on the idea that the movement of the celestial bodies is governed by numerical musical proportions. While Europe was immersed in the Middle Ages, the Arabs were the first to begin to affirm that it was the Earth that revolved around the Sun, and not the other way around. In the Renaissance, Nicolaus Copernicus proposed the heliocentric model, which was strongly rejected by the authorities of the time, especially the religious one. Names like Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei built their telescopes to observe the stars. From the sixteenth century, scientists began to take experimentation as the essential procedure for doing science.

Landscape painting of the nineteenth century is important to understand certain influences that artists have taken for the representation of the cosmos. Many of them have shown their fascination with the landscapes of the Hudson River School, with painters such as Thomas Cole, Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Edwin Church or Thomas Moran, among others. They are sublime, epic landscapes, with what could be called poetic realism, because the landscapes are represented with a very high degree of detail, but certain characteristics can be amplified, such as the size of the mountains or a storm. The atmospheric phenomena are an essential part of this type of paintings. Of Frederic Edwin Church, there are Season of rains in the tropics and Northern lights, paintings that without a doubt have been of inspiration for the space painters. An example of a painting that exaggerates atmospheric phenomena is Mount Rosalie by Albert Bierstadt, where riders can also be seen at the bottom, as if they were small insects in the vastness of the landscape. Within the twentieth century it is interesting to mention José Cuneo Perinetti, an expressionist painter from Uruguay with nocturnal landscapes whose protagonist is the Moon.

The influences for the so-called robotical art are varied, but undoubtedly one of the most obvious is futurism. The twentieth century is the moment in which the sight towards the future begins in a more powerful way. One of the landmarks in architecture of all times is the development of skyscrapers. It was at the end of the 19th century when the Home Insurance Building was built in Chicago, artwork by William Le Baron Jenney. The development of the iron architecture was essential at this time, allowing the creation of taller buildings. The concept of the distancing of historicism will be the essential pillar that will give the rise to futurist architecture. Louis Sullivan, author of the Guaranty Building, said that the main thing is that the form is useful for the function. From the Empire State Building in New York to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, there has been a lot of evolution.

The Futurist movement was born at the beginning of the 20th century, founded by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. In architecture, at the beginning it started with straight lines, especially pursuing a high verticality, with the aim of achieving height. The futurist movement opted for dynamic forms, curves, movement, and will be later with the arrival of neofuturist architecture when these forms are adapted by architects in the new high-tech buildings. Skyscrapers, however, seem to keep straight lines and verticality. As far as we can see, they seem opposite extremes, but it has to do with the building's own typology. What must not be forgotten is that this type of buildings are far from any historicism.

Dynamism and speed are the characteristics that together with high technology have made the original futuristic painting evolve up to the manifestations of the 21st century, mainly in the cinema and videogames. The futurist imagery includes cities with a very high technological degree, either with skyscrapers that rise up to the clouds with a marked verticality as by sinuous constructions such as transport tubes or domes. The futurist painting of the avant-garde is represented by painters such as Umberto Boccioni, Giacomo Balla, Luigi Russolo and Gino Severini. Influenced by other movements such as pointillism or cubism, all bet on the visual representation of movement. Giacomo Balla has several paintings known as Automobile Speed. Especially interesting is the work of Luigi Russolo, seeming to create the first futuristic landscapes, as with Tower Bridge. Umberto Boccioni was also a sculptor, standing out with Unique forms of continuity in space, where the figure seems to wave in the wind as if it was a flag.

Architecture is perhaps the terrain that has evolved the most. Futurism in this manifestation can be divided into three stages: Art Decó, Googie and Neofuturism. Again, what characterizes futuristic architecture are the dynamic forms, the use of new materials, the distancing of all historicist styles, and technology, especially in neofuturist, high-tech and bionic architecture. The Art Decó arose in the United States, mainly in New York, and is characterized by buildings of skyscrapers, with straight lines and verticality. Two examples would be the Empire State Building, by William F. Lamb, and the Chrysler Building, by William van Aven. Googie architecture also emerges in the United States, after the Second World War. The context of the space race makes to develop this type of architecture that could be defined as retro. An example would be the Seattle Space Needle, by Edward E. Carlson. Finally, the Neofuturist architecture shows the union between art and technology, and it is a style that is still valid today. It's called high-tech when technology dominates, and bionic when it has natural forms. The idea of ​​this type of architecture comes directly from the conception of a futuristic city, which usually appears as a cyberpunk city in literature. Japan is the leading country in neofuturist architecture. Kenzō Tange stands out with the Santa María Cathedral in Tokyo and the Yoyogi Gym. Kiyonori Kikutake stands out with the Edo-Tokyo Museum, and Kishō Kurokawa stands out with the Nakagin Capsule Tower, an impressive construction that is hard to believe it was made at the end of the 20th century. If New York was the capital of Art Decó, the city of Tokyo is the capital of Neofuturism.

Finally, speaking about the influences of mathematical art, its application in architecture has been around for a long time. Geometry and symmetry are concepts that have been in the history of art since antiquity. Within the oldest complexes, there are the Pyramids of Giza, in Egypt. The Coliseum of Rome, with an ellipse shape, stands out in the classical period. The vaults and the domes are also great manifestations where the geometry is evident, and to add a couple of examples, could be the ribbed vaults of the Cathedral of Laon in France, or the cupola of San Lorenzo de Turin by Guarino Guarini. An interesting construction already in the Renaissance is the Villa Farnesio de Caprarola, with pentagonal plant. Finally, the spiral and helical shapes make their appearance with the Bramante Stairway and the Borromini Stair respectively. For highlighting some more modern construction, it is interesting to take into account the Barcelona Pavilion by Mies van der Rohe. It is of special interest the geometric decoration in the Arab constructions. Mathematics in sculpture and painting are also evident in avant-garde styles such as cubism or neoplasticism.
The nineteenth-century visionary artists such as Boullée and Ledoux also make use of geometry for their buildings. Of particular interest is the Ledoux Sphere, which parallels the Spaceship Earth of Walt Disney Imagineering, and even the spherical Dragon Ball spacecrafts. The impossible objects and the perpetual mobile are also interesting to mention, such as Oscar Reutersvärd's Penrose Triangle or Robert Boyle's Autofill Bottle. Finally there is M. C. Escher, known for his Impossible staircase, of great influence on later artists.