Geometry in Art

Hey there my little beans!

Today's entree will be about the strong relationship between art and geometry. Let's get into work!

Since archaic times, geometric shapes have played a powerful role in art and visual representations. Since primitive cave art, geometry has always been present in man's constant desire to create.

Geometry's relationship to art can be studied in the artistic representations of the medieval period, where bodies are not represented with volume, nor do the proportions of the human figure correspond to the classical ideal. Symbolism was much more important than form, so forms did not enjoy a beauty of their own, since they were not intended to be beautiful.

In the period from the Romanesque to the Gothic, two different forms of proportionality were used in architecture throughout Europe, based on two figures: the triangle and the square.

In "Ad Triamgulum" proportionality, different types of triangles are used, especially equilateral, rectangular and isosceles triangles. 

   

                   

From the 19th century onwards we will begin to see how this artistic expression depends almost entirely on geometric forms. We will be able to identify the works of a list of modern artists and enjoy observing all the formulas that were used by each one, and despite the fact that they are all based on the same principle, starting from geometry, each one contributed dissimilar and wonderfully creative works, which made them stand out from one another, marking a particular aesthetic, which emerges from the proposal that each one wanted to put forward.

Pablo Picasso

From a mathematical point of view the definition of cubism could be simplified as follows: "of a 3D cube we can see at most 3 sides; a 4-dimensional being could see all 6 sides at the same time. Cubism - Picasso - what he did was to deconstruct the 3D cube into 6 facets. Then paint it in 2D and see it as if we were in the fourth dimension...".

Picasso's cubism is based on a representation of reality from different points of view and with a predominance of geometric figures. It changed the way of understanding painting since the Renaissance, giving way to a perspective of the object represented that can be observed from multiple angles of vision, seeking an intellectual or intuitive recreation of reality, fragmenting the forms.  

Las señoritas de Avignon 1907 -Picasso

Wassily Kandinsky

Precursor of abstraction in painting, he filled the pictorial space with geometry and colour. His ideas on geometry were disseminated through the treatise: "Point and Line on the Plane" in 1926. He considered that colours should abandon the figures to which they are subject in order, by themselves, to give freedom to the expression of ideas and emotions.

He analyses forms and, above all, colour; he develops the idea that figures are not important in art. He favours the expression of emotions and feelings that reflect "what is real" without trying to give an exact image of reality; in his writings we read: "the object is detrimental to my paintings".

                                                    Obra: La composición 8 pintura de Wassily Kandinsky de 1923

Let's take a closer look to the artwork, what sensations do you perceive? do you think the author was trying to give a message? are the elements organized in a certain way to give a message? what do you think it may be? I' ll read you bellow! :)