Martin Kemp - Structures and Intuitions in Art and Science from Leonardo to Now

Structures and Intuitions in Art and Science from Leonardo to Now - Prof Martin Kemp

Certain kinds of art and science originate in the intuiting of deep structures that lie behind appearance. Some of the structures are predominantly static, relying upon the fundamental forms of geometry; some are the result of process, like folding; others disclose the process itself, like splashing. Many of the structures result from processes of self-organisation that are shared across organic and inorganic worlds. These themes run across art, architecture, design and various sciences from the Renaissance to today.

Martin Kemp is Emeritus Research Professor in the History of Art at Oxford University and has written and broadcast extensively on imagery in art and science from the Renaissance to the present day.

Leonardo da Vinci has been at the centre of this endeavour, and has been the subject of a number of his books and exhibitions, including Leonardo (Oxford University Press 2004). His wider research has involved the sciences of optics, anatomy and natural history in various key episodes in the history of naturalism. In 1989 he published The Science of Art. Optical Themes in Western Art from Brunelleschi to Seurat (Yale University Press).