On Saturday January 23rd at 1PM the Light in Winter Festival will present Art Historian Martin Kemp as he explores the ways in which scientists and artists perceive the world and respond to its patterns.  In Structural Intuitions in Art, Science and Technology he shows how “structural intuitions” are reflected in visual arts, science, architecture and design from the Renaissance to today.  Light in Winter recently caught up with Professor Kemp for a short conversation about his fascinating work.

LIW: How did you become interested in visualizations of science, and their relationships to art?

MK: I was trained in biology and was always fascinated with how natural structures, particularly geometrical patterns beneath the surface of appearances, were discovered and depicted. When I became interested in art I felt an affinity with artists who engaged with order and process in nature. This sense of order extends from the optical structures of perspective to such things as the forms of bones, shells and flowers. I became particularly fascinated with artists and scientists who both began from the same starting points – looking at an aspect of nature and sensing intuitively that there is something deeply satisfying to explore.  This intuition of order is something that we have been equipped by evolution to do at a very high level and is a very potent driving force in both science and art.

LIW: What kind of responses did you receive when you first started writing about this subject matter for Nature? Has the response changed over time?  If so, how?

MK: The responses have been very rewarding, but I’ve not explored how they have changed since I begun in 1997. It would be worth thinking about that. I have found the scientists about whom I have written to be extremely helpful, and some good friendships have resulted. It helps coming from “outside” – not belonging to a recognisable faction within their science. The only serious disputes have come when I have written about an image made by a particular scientist and someone has written to say that they or someone else did it first. I’ve not been primarily concerned with priority, but scientists are hugely concerned about it, since it shapes their careers.

LIW: In your book SEEN AND UNSEEN you write “My final plea is for professionals in each ‘field’ to exercise generosity and tolerance within the scope of an agenda which decrees open communication with each other, not just in specially staged conferences but also in broader public forums.” What would some examples of be the ideal collaboration of visual artists and scientists look like?

MK: I don’t think there is an ideal model of collaboration. The only pre-requisite is to  bring people of the highest creative level together to share acts of looking and representing. Recently two colleagues kindly produced a book dedicated to me with contributions from a number of artists who have worked very productively with scientists and scientific institutions, including Tony Robbin in New York and Marta de Menezes in Portugal. There’s also a terrific contribution from Harry Kroto who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. The book is called Acts of Seeing and is published by Zidane Press.

LIW: You write extensively about Leonardo Da Vinci.  Can you point to anyone else who you think could achieve or has achieved a similar ability to explore both art and science?  If so, who and why?  If not, why do you think that is the case?

MK: Leonardo is in a league of his own, but there are many examples in history of people we would call artists of scientists making contributions to the other “field”. Let me cite as examples two 18th-century women: Maria Sybille Merian, from a family of Dutch artists who created incredible illustrations of insects and plants in Surinam; and Anna Morandi, a sculptor specialising in wax images who became recongised  as an international authority on human anatomy. Earlier there was Bernard Pallisy, the French ceramic artist, who propounded innovatory views about fossils and the evolution of the earth.  Such people tend to become lost in our history because of the way we divide our fields of study according to modern classifications.

LIW: Are there any new projects in the works that you can share with us?

MK: There’s a new Leonardo portrait, which has already attracted a great deal of interest and controversy. I’m publishing the first book on it in March. I’m writing a book on Iconic Images, ranging from Christ to DNA, asking how they have transcended their original form and function. And I’m working for Bill Gates to create a website dedicated to his Leonardo Codex. We did a CD some years ago. and now the idea is to make the Codex with interpretative material, including animations, available to all on the web.

Structural Intuitions in Art, Science and Technology is a Free event and takes place in the Statler Auditorium in Statler Hall on Cornell’s Campus.  For more information about this event, or Martin Kemp, go here.