Art in Science

… and vice versa

by Peg Kay

The contributions of science and technology to the art of painting have been incalculable. They can be seen in the composition of the stuff of painting — the paints, the papers, the canvasses — the preservation of paintings, and even where painting takes place, since it was the development of the tube that allowed painters to port their paints into the open air — a shift of venue that provided the impetus for the Impressionist movement.

Not content with simply accepting these munificent contributions, the painters have also seized upon science and technology as subjects for their works. We’ve assembled about two dozen of these works to show here. They have been divided into seven categories. To those of you who came to us by way of a browser search for a particular artist: you’ll find much else of interest here.

PORTRAITS

Ilya Repin: Portrait of Mendeleyev

Albert Edelfelt: Louis Pasteur

David Martin: Benjamin Franklin

Andy Warhol: Albert Einstein

William Blake: Sir Isaac Newton [a truly ditzy portrait]

Max Ernst: Euclid [ditzier yet}

COMICS

Churchman’s cigarette ad

Maxfield Parrish: Wond’rous Wise Man

Unknown: The Scientific Simpleton

DOING SCIENCE

Gerard Dou: Astronomer by Candlelight

Henry Stacy Marks: The Great Auk’s Egg

Jan Vermeer: The Geographer

Joseph Wright: Experiment with the Air Pump

Randy Dudley: Verifying Dissonant Statistics

Rembrandt: The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp

Thomas Eakins: The Gross Clinic

THE MODERNS LOOK AT SCIENCE

Karen Kunc: Ancient Geology

Roy Lichtenstein: Peace through Chemistry

Walter Valentini: Lo Spazio, Il Tempo

SCIENCE AS MAGIC

Adraen Van Ostade: An Alchemist

Jan Steen: Village Alchemist

Bela Lugosi as Dr. Marlowe

Wood: The Alchemist’s Dilemma

AND THE GUY WHO DID IT ALL

Leonardo Da Vinci: Drawing of a woman’s torso