The relationship between art and science

I went to the Met Museum yesterday and saw some oil paintings; it reminded me of a conversation with Teacher Tai Xiangzhou, where he talked about how science influenced the style of oil paintings, which was quite interesting:

  • The realist school was influenced by the Enlightenment and Euclidean geometry, leading to the emergence of photorealism;

  • The Impressionist school was inspired by modern optics and color theory; the discovery of photons and diffraction gave rise to Impressionism, where Monet, Van Gogh, and others were all painting photons;

  • The abstract school was influenced by quantum mechanics and frequency theories; even astronomical telescopes no longer have lenses, which has caused oil paintings to become extremely abstract.


Teacher Tai said he would later write a book to elaborate on the logic behind the relationship between art and science, looking forward to it!