Cloud Chamber Photograph
Prof. G.E. Valley,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Excerpt from The New Landscape in Art and Science by Kepes, Gyorgy (Book – 1956) p.14
“It has been the nature of our age to place the word above the picture, the prose above the poetry, the problem above the tragedy, the search for truth by methods of scince above the search for truth by the intuitive methods of the artist.”
Kepes’ book is worth reading just for the gorgeous picture of our natural world clipped and cropped into a series of black and white photographs. It is worth digesting word for word because its powerful prose captures the heart of the matter that this blog is trying to excavate from our cluttered culture. Every paragraph drips with the sweet sentiment that science alone is missing something. Though it is incredibly awe-inspiring, the nature of nature requires, as Kepes puts it, a poet’s heart and painter’s eye.
The book’s themes:
Image, Form, Symbol
Domesticating the Invisible
The Esthetic Motivation of Science
The Industrial Landscape
Vision, Time, Optics
Thing, Structure, Pattern, Process
Transformation
Analogue, Metaphor
Design and Function in the Living
Perception
Morphology
Symmetry, Perception, Module/Organic Design
Continuity, Discontinuity, Rhymthm, Scale
Science for Artists 