Romantic Objectivism: Diagrammatic Thought in Contemporary Art

This thesis examines notions of diagramming within modern and contemporary art and proposes an entirely new field of "Diagrammatic Art" in an attempt to reconnect science and art on deep philosophical, semiotic and aesthetic foundations.

The study incorporates selected highlights from historical and prehistorical diagram creation to position the diagram as a fundamental mode of human knowledge production and communication, yet one that has been overlooked in its importance to art, where there is a distinct lack of critical discourse concerning its role.

Over the last 100 years, artists have employed a variety of strategies that take advantage of the unique visual and conceptual properties of the diagram to create some of the most challenging artworks of the modern, post-modern and contemporary periods. Applying the semiotic code of science and mathematics to the aesthetic code of art allows artists to create work that mediates between subjective, metaphoric self-expression and the detached, intellectual rigor of objective scientific investigation in a style I refer to as "Romantic-Objectivism."

Through art's incorporation of diagramming as part of its tools and techniques of conception and production, we can see the transformation of not only artistic practice via diagramming but also our notion of what the diagram is itself.

Icon for Brownian motion with transparent disks (7 particles), ink and watercolor on paper, 35 × 25 cm, 2017. (© Michael Whittle. Image courtesy of COHJU Contemporary Art, Kyoto.)