Art and Science – Millennium Group

The relationships between art and science or science have been studied extensively, either in the application of certain scientific principles to the concrete production of things considered artistic (production of glass, oil, photography, etc.), through the direct use of scientific progress (the entire digital age) or by The application of science in the knowledge, study and analysis of these things. On the other hand, there are scholars and art producers who claim that the same type of creativity is involved in both types of work, or in other words, there is only one creativity no matter where it appears, in science or art.

With all of the above, today I would like to address the differences that exist between both activities. For centuries the epitome of scientific procedure has been the aspirations of all other knowledge, in fact, that’s why we have psychology, anthropology, sociology and other branches of the so-called social sciences and humanities that have tried to serve as science (or physical sciences) in order to improve your classification for example.

Fortunately, this ambition diminishes, because it is understood that the path to be followed and the results obtained are of an entirely different nature between one – the science – and the other – the arts from the original -. Regardless of the many and severe criticism that the scientific method has received, it has become clear not only that it is about another kind of knowledge and its construction, but also about the physical results derived from that knowledge.

The fundamental difference between art and science or science is found in the consequences of their progress or transit in time. Whereas for science its advance aims at overcoming its former state, and only in this overcoming does its production of knowledge find meaning, in art (humanities, social sciences), instead of being ostracized or overcome, multiplication is sought and enhanced. , of interpretations, in such a way that neither one is superior or better than the other, nor the knowledge that is generated, nor the things that are born of it. For Ptolemy, the Earth was the center of the universe and everything else revolved around it, and his theory, which in his time represented a great advance, was replaced by the heliocentric system of Nicholas Copernicus, that is, among astronomers there was progress, a gradual convergence of the reality of world mechanics. Today we will hardly find defenders of the Earth as the center of the universe.

On the contrary, van Eyck’s contributions to the practice of painting are not inferior, erroneous, or useless in the face of da Vinci’s advice, nor Gioconda (1503-1519) better than Arnolfini’s wedding(1434) (emphasizing that it is more a matter of subjective taste than a scientific fact, i.e. proven). In the case of science, there is a claim to reach the truth in a particular field (biology, chemistry, physics), in the case of the arts, such a search would not make sense, since one does not want to prove anything, only makes a representation (the most accurate, the most expressive , the most mobile, the most pious, etc.) of what artists and society considered the most valuable at that time (if there was ambition in the arts and this day doubtful it would be beauty). Scientific knowledge is objective, concise and measurable, and knowledge of the arts is subjective, qualitative and relative.

Indeed, the same can be said about the knowledge that each system generates, in science, although unfortunately, there is true and incorrect knowledge, and the joke, precisely, is to remove the incorrect and add the correct ones. This does not exist in the arts, although many claim that it does exist, there is no more true knowledge than another, which is Vitay Vasari, not better than spirits Palomino or Clark biographies, some may have more information than others, but that doesn’t make them discardable; Moreover, anyone wishing to study Diego Velazquez, for example, should read Jonathan Brown’s biography of him, but also the biography of Francisco Pacheco, his father-in-law, not one replacing the other.

That is why we must be wary of anyone who pretends in the name of art to dictate a chair, condemn some and think of others as if their appellations were unique, certain and indisputable. There is nothing in the world of complementary arts and disciplines that has such a character. Of course, you can say this or that, if it is true, as long as it is accompanied by the phrase “for me”. In science 2 + 2 = 4, no matter what it seems to me, it would be silly to say from my point of view that two plus two equals four. Otherwise, the assertion that such a painter or gallery is objectively better or worse, perhaps, but in the eyes of some, not all, this is not science.

August 16, 2022