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EINSTEIN AND PICASSO
Science
and Art?
Einstein and
Picasso believed that art and science are means to explore the world
beyond perception, beyond appearances.
For this, they
used creativity and intuition.
See
a PASSAGE OF THE BOOK CAIUS
ZIP IN: EINSTEIN,
PICASSO, AGATHA
and CHAPLIN
At the beginning of the 20th century, a
revolution in the arts and physical science occurred simultaneously. On one side, Pablo Picasso crushed the rigidity of classic perceptive,
with the help of cubism, rediscovering a new way to interpret reality. Cubism presents objects such as they are conceived
by the mind. The cubist painter paints what exists and not what is seen.
Les Demoiselles shows Picasso’s solution to the problem of four-dimensional representation
The painting portrays five naked prostitutes in a brothel. The faces of the two women on the right show such accentuated features that they seem to be using masks. The shape of the nose and the facial features are elaborated in a series of drawings that refer to African masks.
In the recent book, 'Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time
and the Beauty that Causes Havoc’, Arthur I. Miller, professor
of History and Philosophy of Science of the University College, London,
assesses this subject, offering a very plausible explanation for the
apparent coincidence of the dates.
They
were both part of a deep cultural transformation that had already
started at the beginning of the century. The main focus of this
revolution was precisely based on the issue that we cannot only limit
ourselves to our senses to understand reality. Picasso studied forms and images seen at the same
time from different angles. When an observer looks at a statue, he is
aware not only of the existence of the object’s volume but also of
it’s other angles. Most importantly:
there is no such thing as an instant statue.
If
there were, how would it move in space?
In order for any matter to exist, it not only needs
three dimensions but also a forth dimension, which is time. If time can be considered a forth dimension, then
the existence of a new concept called space-time can also be considered.
Einstein,
on the other hand, in his Theory of Special Relativity, showed
that observers with a relative movement amongst themselves, like a
person on a pavement and another passing by in a car, for example,
obtain different results when they measure distances and time intervals.
If the person on the pavement were holding a ruler of a metre in horizontal position (measured by the ruler), the person in the car will see a shorter ruler.
We do not perceive this as these effects only
become important with speed that is close to the speed of light, of 300
thousand kilometres per second. A few years later, it was clear that Relativity
treats
time like a forth dimension. Picasso and Einstein were influenced by the French mathematician Henri
Poincaré
who, at the turn of the century, proposed that geometry was not the only
thing that described reality, in his book 'Science and Hypothesis’,
published in Germany in 1904. Picasso
lived with an animated group of artists. In that circle of friends,
there was a man; an actuary, in the branch of insurance, called Maurice
Princet, who studied advanced maths as a pastime. What
did Princet have in common with that group? One
of the most important models and a close friend of Picasso’s, Alice Géry, introduced
the painter to her lover, Maurice Princet, who wanted to develop his
skills in painting. Soon after, Princet, accompanied by his lover,
started frequenting the same bar where artists would meet. Later, Alice
became his wife so that he could get a promotion, as a married man was
considered trustworthy and more reliable in 19th century
society. On many occasions, Princet
read Poincaré to Picasso and his friends. The actuary was frequenting
Picasso’s atelier at the time when the painter was creating Demoiselles.
He discussed geometry and was against classic perspective.
Einstein
and Picasso shared points in common regarding their personal lives. Picasso’s
biographer, John Richardson states a comment made by Dora Maar, one of
the artist’s lovers: "There
were five factors that determined his way of life and likewise his
style: the woman with whom he was in love; the poet or poets who served
as a catalyst; the place where he lived; the circle of friends who
provided the admiration and understanding of which he never had enough;
and the dog who was his inseparable companion."
Picasso
lived at number 13, rua Ravignan (a poor neighbourhood, without
sewage, light, gas or paving) in the Montmartre district. This dwelling
was affectionately called Bateau Lavoir
(washer boat) for its similarity with the area the town hall gave
the washerwomen. During this period, 1907, Picasso, living with his
lover Fernande Olivier at the time, produced his work Les Demoiselles
d'Avignon. This
painting marked the start of Cubism. With it, Picasso attained some
notoriety and caused much controversy amongst critics, artists and even
close friends. Except for the dog, Albert
Einstein’s situation was similar to that of the painter.
In
1905, the scientist and his wife, Mileva, moved to a shabby building at
49 Kramgasse, in the centre of the old city of Bern, in
Swtizerland. Einstein’s close friends in Bern were obscure civil
servants like himself and none of them could have imagined, much like
Picasso’s friends, the revolutionary idea Einstein was about to
develop. Einstein liked to attend meeting at his friends’ houses.
These meetings were baptized "Akademie
Olympia",
an irreverent way of mocking the pompous academies. Generally
speaking, the argument between historians concerning art is that the
roots of Cubism come from Paul Cézanne and primitive African art. Cézanne
used geometrical shapes in his painting and affirmed that he saw “the
square, the sphere and the cone” in nature. His drawings broke the
traditional presentation of an object wedged in perspective. They showed
the figure in more than one face with a subtle distortion. This
distortion of Cézanne’s is not the expressionist distortion but a
breaking of the surface in oblique planes, a division of volumes, and a
new form of equilibrium. By
looking at Picasso’s sketchpads and other witnesses of this work, we
can see that the artist underwent prolonged meditation in the
preparation of this painting. In
his sketches, we find various drawings, one of which is surprising in
that it is the projection of a solid in four dimensions. All
his sketches reveal the tireless search for simplification of the
elements of the human body, which draw nearer to the simple geometrical
shapes. Finally, we see studies of different perspectives and this important element of Cubism that Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque (1882-1963) made so clear in their following work: the overlapping of different perspectives on the same canvas, revealing different viewpoints of the same object.
Creativity
can also come from other sources. Why
must the roots of the Cubist movement, that mostly influenced art in the
twentieth century, only be found in art? By
widening our perspectives on the origins of Picasso’s Demoiselles
to include science, mathematics and technology, we reach a deeper
introspection of Picasso’s monumental effort. The Theory of Relativity and Les Demoiselles present the answers of two worlds: Einstein and Picasso, who, although culturally and geographically apart, provoked dramatical changes that expanded the vision of reality. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Shakespeare There are more things in science and art than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Considered one of the
pioneers of Relativity. In his book, Science
et Hypothèse, a work of philosophical reflection and scientific
divulgation published in 1902, translated into German in 1904, explains
how “a world in four dimensions can be represented, starting from the
analogy with our vision, that projects a two dimensional frame in our
retina”. We know that objects have three dimensions, explains Poincaré, because we see them in sequentially different perspectives. He goes on to say, “in the same way that the perspective of a three-dimensional figure can be represented on a plane, a figure can also be represented in four dimensions. One can take various perspectives from different viewpoints, giving us this sequence of perspectives of the vision of someone moving in four-dimensional space”.
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