The science of art

15 April is celebrated as World Art Day.

World Art Day is an international celebration of the fine arts in order to promote awareness of creative activity worldwide.

The date was decided in honor of the birthday of Leonardo Da Vinci.

Leonardo Da Vinci was chosen as a symbol world peace, freedom of expression, tolerance, brotherhood and multiculturalism as well as art’s importance to other fields. More than that, he is an ultimate symbol of a creative person. He was an artist, visionary, mathematician, sculptor, scientist, engineer, inventor and more.

But he is more renowned as the ‘Renaissance’ artist. Surprisingly, when applying for a post to serve as a civil servant to the Regent of Milan, he presented himself as a military engineer and drew almost fantastic yet detailed images of inventions to be used for war! He did not see himself as a great artist or one having great artistic skills alone. In fact, he believed that the disciplines of mathematics, geometry, science, architecture, alchemy even and many more were all part of one learning discipline. Art probably transcended all definitions of each of the disciplines to include all.

For example, he believed that the purpose of art is probably to draw man-  all that he is, all that he represents, all that he has a potential to be and all that he can achieve. And in doing so, an artist must be able to show the intention of man’s soul.To do that, an artist must even understand anatomy, meta-physics, perhaps spirituality even! In addition to his anatomical investigations, da Vinci studied botany, geology, zoology, hydraulics, aeronautics and physics. He sketched his observations on loose sheets of papers and pads that he tucked inside his belt. He placed the papers in notebooks and arranged them around four broad themes—painting, architecture, mechanics and human anatomy. He filled dozens of notebooks with finely drawn illustrations and scientific observations.

But then, this is where we can start to define creativity. Creativity is that which permits every person to imagine, think, use intellect, be intelligent about it and try to express his ideas and thoughts in the most meaningful way possible to him.

And hence, celebrating world art day is indeed a celebration to promote creative activity worldwide.

Part 1 of the many part series to explore the science of art .

“The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.”