I often heard <br />that while the sciences concern themselves <br />with objective truths <br />the arts deal with subjective phenomena. <br /> <br />Many years ago I held the same view, <br />but later came to the conclusion <br />that this is just a well-combed popular myth. <br /> <br />It is an untenable credo <br />because the sharp separation <br />of the arts and sciences is a rigid <br />and arbitrary mandate, full of holes. <br /> <br />Although all subjects have their specificities, <br />at the same time they also share <br />many common traits with each other. <br /> <br />There is art in science and science in art. <br /> <br />Artists, for example, <br />apply geometry to represent <br />a three dimensional scene in a painting, <br />which is a two dimensional surface. <br /> <br />By using ‘objective' geometrical perspective, <br />Renaissance artists, among them Alberti, <br />Brunelleschi, Uccello, Leonardo and Dürer, <br />developed in Europe the ‘subjective' illusion <br />of perceptual realism. <br /> <br />Later, in the Dutch Republic of the 17th century, <br />Johannes Vermeer applied expensive pigments <br />to the canvas and conducted <br />pioneering research in optics that enhanced <br />the supreme quality of his work, <br />imbuing his paintings with sublime, <br />otherworldly light. <br /> <br />In the 19th century <br />the Romantic painter John Constable <br />prepared detailed studies <br />of the landscape and weather conditions <br />of England, before transcribing them <br />into images of stunning accuracy and grace. <br /> <br />Following the closing of the Weimar Bauhaus <br />by the Nazis in 1933, the artist Josef Albers <br />moved to the USA, where he worked at <br />Black Mountain College and at Yale University. <br /> <br />Albers is credited with the discovery of <br />the gravitational laws of color interaction, <br />which he expressed in his minimalist paintings <br />of
