Week 2

After the first week of maths and art I really didn't have huge expectations for the second week, I thought it was be more debate and talk about what exactly the subject involved, however instead we headed in a direction that I was rather please to talk about and that was the art itself. We explored many areas of how maths affects the art around us and even our architecture. Most interesting to me was one of the first pictures shown to us of a spiral drawn onto the ground in a town square of some kind. Because of how it was drawn it really brought to me the feeling of tension within the picture. Usually, we encounter architecture to be of a 'perfect and flawless' appearance, with perfectly drawn squares and circles. However this picture showed me that our perception of something as bland as a town square can change with the involvement of maths/art within the architecture. Strangely enough the fact that mathematics was used to create the masterpiece is also a contrasting factor in my opinion because normally I perceive maths to follow structure and rules. However in this case it does the complete opposite. Another piece of art that stood out from the flock was a piece designed by Bridget Riley. It was off black and white lines swirled around each. To me I instantly thought to myself that it was a 3D cone shape, however as people began to converse about it, i realized that my view point was not that of everyone else, some people didn't even see it as 3d, while others thought that it was a 3d inverse cone. It showed me that using maths in this artwork provided not one, but many other possibly view points to appreciate the art. It reminded me that everyone is different with their thoughts and opinions and that one artwork may not necessarily spark the same emotions for every individual.

As we scrolled through countless images that relation to maths and art I slowly became bored with the repeating images that had relations to 'optical illusions.' I was glad when we moved onto artworks by a man named Chuck Close. I gazed upon his portrait painting thinking that it was extremely well painted, but as James zoomed in close to the image we see realised that the picture itself was not a picture as a whole, it was made up of thousands of other tiny boxes, which were then split up into many more 'pixels.' I had to stop for a moment to fully contemplate the time and effort put into this painting. Once again, it showed me that there is much more to art that its face value.