The world is big, and I'm small

December 19, 2006 5:31 PM

I want to find some art (for my wall) which has a humanist nature. It should capture that feeling you get when you realize some deep truth in physics or math, or when you're contemplating the universe. Know anything that fits the bill?

As an example, a painting of someone contemplating nature, or becoming super-aware of their position in the universe. It should communicate the feeling that the person in the painting is having, too. Anything which brings to mind "The Question" (i.e., what is existence, what is reality, wtf is up with all this anyway?) would be very helpful too.

As a more concrete example: I saw a painting once of a female astronaut in a space-station looking down on earth, with a title that read something like "How far we've come" It was really well done, and inspired "that feeling". I forget the artist, so bonus points if you can help me find that particular painting and who did it.

One more possibility is art which directly demonstrates the greatness of nature. There are lots of easily-found examples of this (hubble-deep-field, etc) so let's not drown the thread with them. I want more out-of-the-way stuff that would be surprising and interesting for like-minded people.

My plan was to pick a few good pieces and put them on my wall, but google was failing to find anything appropriate. Askmifi seems like a better resource to tap on this question anyway.

posted by clord to media & arts (23 comments total)

The cosmic microwave background is pretty deep. Or is that too obvious?

A tastefully-rendered e^iπ + 1 = 0 would push most of my mathematical buttons.
posted by chrismear at 5:41 PM on December 19, 2006

it's not exactly what you're requesting, but consider some of Ernst Haeckel's work. It captures the "deep truth" of geometry and order in biological architecture, among other things.
posted by Señor Pantalones at 5:49 PM on December 19, 2006

I recently saw a large, beautiful copperplate of Tycho and Kepler, with schematics of some of their pet astronomical theories superimposed on them (theories that are bunk, I hasten to add, but make for interesting art). At $1200, it was a little out of my price range, but I'm still tempted.
posted by adamrice at 5:52 PM on December 19, 2006

"How Far We've Come" (by Bryan Larsen) at Quent Cordair Fine Art, which offers a lot of pieces you'd probably be interested in.
posted by fhangler at 5:54 PM on December 19, 2006 [2 favorites]

I've always wanted to frame a complicated circuit diagram and hang it as art because to me it captures our place in the world, our puny human place, and yet it's a pretty graphic of it all, looking so grand, when really it's just for some gadget. For me, it humorously captures our lot, we self professed grand engineers. A deep truth that oscillates back and forth.

But I think you are wanting more something like a print of Rodin's "Thinker."
posted by Listener at 5:55 PM on December 19, 2006

Yes, curious illustrations by enlightenment scientists would fit the bill. Math and the CMR are good suggestions, but a little too obvious, chrismear.

I'm looking for works which are subtle — that everyone appreciates on an aesthetic level, but it should "wink" the Big Question or one of the Big Feelings I mention in the OP.

I'm open to surprises, but I should clarify that a big requirement is aesthetics.
posted by clord at 6:00 PM on December 19, 2006

The first work your description made me think of was Durer's famous Melencolia I. If that's up your alley, I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult to find a quality print of it.
posted by trip and a half at 6:01 PM on December 19, 2006

fhangler, thanks that's the one I was referring to. I see many other good examples in that gallery too.
posted by clord at 6:05 PM on December 19, 2006

All of these answers are very figurative and literary, and maybe that's your bent, but as far as I'm concerned not much captures the essence of contemplation and discovery, in a cosmic sense, like Rothko's color field paintings.
posted by furiousthought at 6:18 PM on December 19, 2006

Buddhabrot?
posted by 0xFCAF at 6:27 PM on December 19, 2006

I always loved pictures of space, the black hole, the ocean, and other pics depicting our tiny-ness.
posted by Sassyfras at 6:39 PM on December 19, 2006

He's an old roommate and friend of mine, so I'm not independent, but I like some of David Grindle's stuff. He's got one that I don't see on the site that is a view from the top of a waterfall. It inspires the weirdest sort of vertigo.
posted by lauranesson at 7:11 PM on December 19, 2006

I like that sense of scale, myself, and would love to own Fragonard's The Swing and Blindman's Bluff, as well as some of Hubert Robert's work.
posted by timepiece at 7:12 PM on December 19, 2006

(Derail)

How Far We've Come blows my mind! Does anybody have access to a high-resolution image of this painting, or a cheap poster? Email is in profile...
posted by onalark at 7:25 PM on December 19, 2006

Many good examples. I agree somewhat with furiousthought — we've got the figurative and humanist side of the equation covered pretty well. I'd welcome more which is of the calibre of Bryan Larsen's stuff though.

Do you know of any art which bears an abstract resemblance to modern theories? I'm thinking quantum theory, particle physics, general relativity, mathematical purity resulting in beauty (I once had a really crisp 11x16 print depicting a glider from the Game of Life — simple and elegant but belying infinite complexity)

Are there any artistic representations of turing machines?

Remember, it can't be too "obvious", or else I won't be allowed to hang it on the wall!
posted by clord at 8:28 PM on December 19, 2006

Bert Meyers' lovely X-Ray photography and Edward Weston's Natural Studies both evoke to me some of the grace and order (mathematics!) in nature while remaining artistic.

Since you liked the idea of Ernst Haeckel, there is a wide range of biological antique prints and engravings of all kinds here. I particularly enjoy these prints of "luminous" life.

I give you an artistic representation of a Turing machine.

There are some neat images of art and science here under "Visual Explorations." My favorite is this imaging of of electron flow.

And, even if they are obvious, I offer the nautilus shell, snowflakes , and the rings of Saturn

I would also like to share this quote, by Richard Feynman, which I feel is in the spirit of your question:

"Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars — mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is 'mere'. I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination — stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern — of which I am a part... What is the pattern or the meaning or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little more about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?"

I am also very much blow away by How Far We've Come. Thank you for making me aware of it, and thank you for this question!
posted by nelleish at 9:25 PM on December 19, 2006

I've always liked posters with this fragment from The Sistine Chapel. It's Adam and God reaching for each other, with a gap between the two. It can represent man and the divine, or the ever-present gap between man and the divine, or the unconquerable unknowable distance between us all. I don't believe in god, but I still find the image to be quite profound.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 9:42 PM on December 19, 2006

I've always liked the poster that shows the Milky Way with an arrow pointing that reads: You Are Here.
posted by BoscosMom at 10:02 PM on December 19, 2006

z machine.
posted by srs at 11:51 PM on December 19, 2006

I'm sorry. I don't think that worked. Let me try again. z machine. Mad scientists go, "what happens when I press this button?" and make art nouveau.
posted by srs at 11:53 PM on December 19, 2006

I wonder if something by Caspar David Friedrich might suit you. The Wanderer Above a Sea of Mist, for example, or The Moon Rising Over the Sea or Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon.
posted by misteraitch at 1:55 AM on December 20, 2006

I have a large Howard Behrens serigraph called "Santorini View" that might fill your bill, as a start. A few copies of this 1986 work in original edition might be available from dealers. Or, you can purchase inexpensive digital photos of similar Santorini scenes, if you like.

Santorini of course, sits at the edge of ancient volcanic caldera, now submerged, that probably last erupted violently in the times of early Greek civilization. There is some thought that it may be the source of some of the Atlantis myths.

What I like about the Behrens scene is that it is very human. Two young female tourist figures, perhaps students on holiday, looking over something now very beautiful, in the full sunshine of a summer day, that once was a site of the most terrible demonstration of nature's power a human can witness. And there are echoes in the scene of the call of an ancient event to the young, across time. So, maybe this is what you had in mind?
posted by paulsc at 7:08 AM on December 20, 2006

Depending on how much you want to spend, works by Devorah Sperber are very subtle. Initially appearing to be a type of folk art because of the hanging spools of thread, her work when viewed through a viewing sphere inverts and become a classic painting. The scientific aspect is an intergral mechanism in the piece.
posted by elkelk at 10:57 AM on December 20, 2006 [1 favorite]