AlexisTongue-Desma9 - Math and Art

I’ve always assumed there was a connection between math and art. I took art history classes in high school and went over various works of art that had geometric configurations or origins, especially when it comes to architecture. Artists use math in their works to help with things like perspective, ratio, etc. Perspective is necessary to understand painting. A painting is the intersection of a visual pyramid at a given distance, with a fixed center and a defined position of the light, represented by art with lines and colors on a given surface. Leon Battista Alberti was an Italian Renaissance humanist author, artist, architect, etc, who wrote three treatises about art and its use. For Alberti, the ultimate artistic goal of painting was to rival Nature in the depiction of visual reality. Forms within a painting should be modeled with light and shade to appear sculptural, as though they stand out from the two-dimensional surface like the forms in ancient relief sculpture. Other artists like Leonardo Da Vinci used math implicitly to create their compositions. The math was not apparent until you take a closer look at the ratio and dimensions of the paintings. Paintings like the Mona Lisa used the Golden Ratio which has roots in algebra and the divine proportion.


Da Vinci also used math to create the proportions of how a man should be drawn perfectly.



 Other artists like Piet Mondrian used geometry in his paintings that were explicit in his various colored rectangles. 



If you look closely, you will be able to. Find math in all types of art from the early renaissance to modern-day works. 


Works Cited

“Alberti's Revolution in Painting (Article).” Khan Academy, Khan Academy, https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/renaissance-reformation/early-renaissance1/beginners-renaissance-florence/a/albertis-revolution-in-painting. 

“Art and Math: Aesthetics of Calculations.” DailyArt Magazine, 19 Oct. 2021, https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/art-and-math/. 

Jones, Jonathan. “The Oblong and Winding Road: Mondrian's Tortured Journey to Gridlock Genius.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 2 June 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/jun/02/mondrian-tortured-quest-for-spiritual-salvation-gemeentemuseum-hague. 

“Leonardo and Mathematics.” The Mona Lisa Foundation, 9 Aug. 2018, http://monalisa.org/2012/09/12/leonardo-and-mathematics-in-his-paintings/. 

Nayeri, Farah. “Italy to Lend Leonardo Da Vinci Works to France in a Masterpiece Swap.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 24 Sept. 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/24/arts/design/da-vinci-vitruvian-man.html. 

Newman, Seth. “Beauty in Math and Art Activate Same Brain Area.” Scientific American, Scientific American, 1 Sept. 2014, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/beauty-in-math-and-art-activate-same-brain-area/. 

“Piet Mondrian. Broadway Boogie Woogie. 1942-43: Moma.” The Museum of Modern Art, https://www.moma.org/collection/works/78682. 

“The Mathematics in Art.” The Art Of Maths, https://artofmaths.eu/the-mathematics-in-art/. 




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