Selected Papers from Participants of the International Workshop on Art and Science

e 19961SAST SPECIAL SECTI()N Selected Papers from Participants of The International Workshop on Art and Science Vinci, Italy, 11-13 December 1992 I amfully conscious that, not beinga literary man, certainpresumptuouspersons will think that they may reasonably blameme;allegingthat I am not a man of letters. Foolish folks!Do they not know that I might retort asMarius did to theRoman Patriciansl7y saying: That they, whodeck themselves out in thelabours of others will not allowme my own. Theywill say that I, having no literary skill, cannotproperly express that whichI desire totreatof;but they donot know that mysubjects aretobedealtwith l7y experience rather than l7y words; and [experience] has been the mistress of those who wrote well. And so, as mistress, I will citeherin all cases. -Leonardo da Vinci [1] These words have been published as a foreword in a number of past issues of the journal Leonardo. It is quite evident that in 1968, when starting a journal dedicated to the relationships between art, science and technology, founding editor Frank Malina made the right decision in naming it after Leonardo da Vinci, who was, of course, an artist, scientist and technician. The Renaissance was a unique period in which the relationships between art, science and technology were so close that many persons of the age, such as Leonardo, worked in more than one of these disciplines. For example , for various reasons, the problems of depicting the real world led the Renaissance painters to study mathematics for solutions. Morris Kline wrote: Very interesting evidence of the artist's attempt to discover the mathematical essence of this subject is found in one of Leonardo's studies on proportion.... The artist of the late Medieval period and the Renaissance was, also, the architect and engineer of his day and so was necessarily mathematically inclined . Businessmen, secular princes, and ecclesiastical officials assigned all construction problems to the artist. He designed and built churches, hospitals, palaces, cloisters, bridges, fortresses, dams, canals, town halls, and instruments of warfare. Numerous drawings of such engineering projects are in da Vinci's notebooks and he, himself, in offering his services to Lodovico Sforza, ruler of Milan, promised to serve as an engineer, constructor of military works, and designer of war machines, as well as architect , sculptor and painter. The artist was even expected to solve problems involving the motion of cannonballs in artillery fire, a task which in those times called for profound mathematical knowledge [2]. Kline added: This striking figure of incredible physical strength and unparalleled mental endowment prepared for painting by deep and extensive studies in anatomy, perspective, geometry, physics, and chemistry.... He opened his Trattato della Pittura with the words, "Let no one who is not a mathematician read my works." ... Leonardo scored those who thought they could ignore theory and produce art by mere practice: rather, "Practice must always be founded on sound theory" [3]. There is no doubt that any investigation on the connections between art, science and technology must include the decisive landmark of the works of Leonardo. In recent years, thanks in part to the journal Leonardo, discussions on the relationships between art and science have been increasing once again among scientists and artists. These discussions started long ago with Leonardo da Vinci, but still have great interest today. One of the main reasons for the renewal of interest between artists and scientists is due to the increasing diffusion of so-called new technologies [4]. The technologies are modifying scientists' and artists' ways ofworking-and are resulting in a profound modification in the way that art historians investigate art. LEONARDO, Vol. 29, No.1, pp. 17-18, 1996 17 AsJacques Mandelbrojt has written, "There is a great need for an aesthetic appraisal of art produced with new technologies" [5]. It is clear that the number of conferences , meetings, workshops, books and newspaper articles on the topic of art and science is rapidly increasing. The investigation of new connections between art and science is probably one of the most interesting cultural phenomena of recent years. A conference dedicated to these topics, entitled The International Workshop on Art and Science, took place in December 1992 in the small town where Leonardo was born-the Tuscan...