Deep Affinities

Book excerpt: An illustrated exploration of the fundamental connections between art and science, from an author who has lived in both worlds In this thought-provoking book, Philip F. Palmedo, a former physicist who now writes on art, reveals how the two defining enterprises of humankind—art and science—are rooted in certain common instincts, which we might call aesthetic: an appreciation of symmetry, balance, and rhythm; the drive to simplify and abstract natural forms, and to represent them symbolically. Palmedo traces these instincts back to a very early time in human history—demonstrating, for example, the level of abstract thinking required to create the stone tools and cave paintings of the Paleolithic—and then forward, to the builders of the Gothic cathedrals, to Leonardo da Vinci and Isaac Newton, to Einstein and Picasso. Illustrated with more than 125 creations of the genus Homo—from a flint hand ax chipped half a million years ago to the abstractions of Hilma af Klint and the James Webb Space Telescope—Palmedo’s text leaves us with a new appreciation of the instinct for beauty shared by artists and scientists alike.