From Publishers Weekly
This beautifully illustrated volume is a surprising synthesis of two seemingly disparate cultures: a revealing look at more than a century of science and the art it has influenced. Gamwell, curator of the Gallery of Art and Science at the New York Academy of Sciences, brings her rare and expansive view of creativity to bear on the impulses common to both pursuits. Opening with a consideration of Romanticism, illustrated by Caspar David Friedrich's lonely "Wanderer above a Sea of Fog," and J.M.W Turner's paintings of light and darkness, Gamwell gently tugs readers along on a tour of the Western mind. She sees Darwinism as the beginning of a "pursuit of the absolute" destined to obsess both scientists and artists. From there, Gamwell tracks the explosive rise of the scientific worldview with hundreds of artworks from the major movements, pieces that reflect a fascination with exploration and discovery, as well as mixed feelings about technological advancement. While the influence of science is easier to see in Wassily Kandinsky's amoeba-like forms or Alexander Calder's constellation mobiles than it is in Jackson Pollock's energetic splashes, the author draws careful lines from science to painting and sculpture, allowing even art (or science) novices to appreciate her argument. Ultimately, Gamwell argues for the direct relationship between scientific knowledge and abstract art, and after such an eloquent and visually exciting journey, the link is perfectly clear. 156 color and 208 b&w illustrations.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The director of the art museum at SUNY at Binghampton and adjunct science professor at the School of Visual Arts, Gamwell attempts to enumerate what we've suspected all along: art, science, and religion are entwined in a dance, each affecting the others. Text and images flow nicely from epoch to epoch, as Gamwell illustrates the zeitgeists that created some of the world's great ideas. One of the first images in the book is a painting by Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog, which perfectly illustrates the essence of life on the brink of the modern scientific era. From there, the reader moves through various art movements and scientific discoveries, culminating in (of course) an image of a cone nebula from the Hubble Space Telescope. Following the text are notes, a chronology of events, a broad list of suggestions for further reading, and a functional index. Small problems of perception occur, such as listing the diagnosis of anorexia nervosa in the "spiritual" realm, and there is a lack of spiritual emphasis in general; however, these issues do not detract from the book as a whole. Recommended for academic and larger public libraries.
Nadine Dalton Speidel, Cuyahoga Cty. P.L., Parma, OH
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Nadine Dalton Speidel, Cuyahoga Cty. P.L., Parma, OH
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
