How Visual Art Relates to Physics

The visual arts have become the foundation for the fields of arts and sciences in the recent days. Painting, drawing, and sculpture are accorded wide recognition in many subjects, particularly in physics, while advanced technology has incorporated visual arts in printing, motion pictures, and graphic designs so as to come up with the latest illustration tools. The notion of visual art is clearly brought out and implemented in the book World of Art by Henry Sayre (Sayre 64). This book provides extensive information about different types of art. Sayre presents how critical thinking and science can be applied to the way one views things. The critical thinking allows one to compare two distinct pictures and determine the specific art elements used. This book also talks about the ‘works in progress,’ representing how a piece of artwork begins and how it ends. Therefore, this book gives a clear discription of visual art and how people perceive it. This paper aims at examining how visual art relates and is used in physics in relation to the book World of Art.

Physics and art are two related subjects that work consistently. According to the book World of Art, visual art brings out a clear picture of things and how they are observed by people. It describes what role such elements of visual art as lines, shapes, forms, space, color, and texture play in depicting things (Fazenda 17). The book discusses topics like the optics of the eye and camera, the distinct sources of light, holography and photography, color in paitings and printings. Physics contains a lot of different topics that relate to visual art, as it is brought forth by Sayre in the book World of Art. However, the major concepts that are clearly outlined are the concepts of light and sound, which are essential in both physics and visual art, as proved by Sayre.

According to Sayre, light is one of the most significant elements of art because it determines how people recognize pictures and diagrams. According to him, a picture can be well identified through the presence of light (Sayre 82). In other words, the book clearly explains that the presence of light and contrast in an image determine whether the photo is taken at night or during the day, in the morning when the sun rises up, in the afternoon when the sun is hot, or in the evening when the sun sets (Johnson 101). Light also helps people determine the mood of the image; in the sense that it can be used to tell whether a person on the picture is happy or not. In other words, light is a way of communicating in arts. Thus, light is as important in art as it is in physics.

Through light and sound, it is very easy to perceive the world. There are several means of communication in science with most of them using the concept of either light or sound, or sometimes both (Gilbert and Haeberli 7). The soaring form of communication is art, and in most cases, arts employ light and/or sound as their expression medium. Just as it is put by Sayre, visual arts use light as well as sound to make the work of art evident. Thus, movies, ballet, and music videos, where computer graphics is employed, use both light and sound. Therefore, visual art is evident in many physically related fields.

In addition, Sayre puts it clear in his book World of Art that visual art must employ critical thiniking so as an individual could compare one depiction with another using different components of art. One of the major elements used in critical thinking is light (Sayre 187). The way light is employed in an image can clearly determine what time the picture was photographed, therefore, giving a good comparison. Light can also tell the whether pattern of the picture. Moreover, in visual art, light can help a person perceive where the picture was taken, whether inside a house or outside (Grau 66).

In physics, there is a profound examination of sound and light; and how the people’s ears and eyes detect them is not only rationally pleasant, but also significant to comprehend and intepret the world in which individuals live. All the phenomena that occur around people in the world and how individuals perceive them are determined by the presence of light and sound. The pictures given below (see Picture 1) clearly show how light and color are used in visual art and what impact they may have on the image and its spatial dimensions (Gilbert and Haeberli 8).Comprehending the physics of sound and light may also augment the appreciation and understanding of works of art and even motivate musicians and artists to broaden their knowledge of the subject (Fazenda 45). Consequently, understanding of some aspects of physics might improve their music and art production as well as inspire the artists to create something new. The same applies to physicists: they can also be inspired and motivated by the visual arts in their work. In fact, physics is just another word for nature if to translate the word Phusis from Greek, from which it was derived. This means that physics is the science that studies naturally occuring observable facts about energy, and the light is also a naturally occuring entity, which makes the concept of visual art evident in physics.

According to Sayre, ‘the work of progress,’ which refers to the beginning and ending of art, is another concept that is also present in physics. Just the way a diagram can be drawn right from the beginning to the end, from scatch to something significant, the same way physics defines things in nature (Johnson 101).

Another important idea brought out by Sayre in World of Art is that through critical thinking and problem soliving, artists are able to come up with great artistic works (Sayre 312). The aspect of problem solving is very crucial at this point in the sense that it greatly contributes to innovations and technological advancements. For example, in the ancient days, people used to draw images using water paintings on canvas, but with time, oil paintings were introduced to solve the problem of the fast fading colors. The concept of problem solving has advanced visual art, which can be vivid from the new incorporation of form, lines, value, and texture, among others (Sayre 497).

The same case is observed in physics, whereby physics is a science and there has been several advancements and modifications in the science field due to numerous innovations that are observed in the world today. And any advancement of a substance is triggered by the objective of solving a particular problem and making life easier (Gilbert and Haeberli 7). For example, through advancements of physics, people are now aware that light travels faster than sound. Therefore, problem solving is a very important concept in visual art, as perceived by Sayre, as well as in physics, as perceived by scientists.

The last important factor is that color is also as essential as light in visual art because colors are used to differentiate images and act as an attraction factor in images. According to Sayre, colors are very powerful image developers. For example, when an image is drawn with a red color, it depicts youthfulness, energy, and action. The experts also state that blue color is the dominat color of furniture and paintings in bedrooms because it helps to relax. According to Sayre, green color mostly suggests hope, growth, and nature (Sayre 581). When yellow color is combined with red, it suggests swiftness and power of a particular object, for example, a car (Grau 112). Therefore, this eventful nature of colors help the artists develop attractive images and drawings that possess massive meanings. In the physical field, however, color and sound that people recognize do not rely on the physical, measurable incentive, but on the physiological response illustrated by psycho-physical limitations. These may include saturation, brightness, hue for color, and pitch, timbre for sound (Fazenda 99).

Thus, it is clear that the concepts of visual art brought out in the World of Art by Sayre are evident in physics and are very significant components of physics (Sayre 167). Consequently, visual art and physics are consistent in all elemental functions and operations.