Da Vinci and Math
- By Brian Kim

Art

In art, there are visual arts of painting, architecture, drawings/paintings. It is on of the ones where it is fine arts including performing arts and literature. The history of art is practically classifying the history of humans, the certain mood at the certain period of time, etc. Art is full of expressions and dramatic flows of human minds/emotions, and is moderately appealing to the eye. There are 6 elements in art; Texture, Value, Shape, Line, Color, and Space. These elements express the painting by giving it more depth into it. It's all around the world. Art can be everything; even a single line drawn is a piece of art, even scribbles!

Math
When thinking of Math, the first thing that comes to some peoples mind is E = MC(squared). Math is a study of numbers, structrure, space, chances, etc. Math has patterns in it, which is very neat because once finding out a pattern for a certain equation it becomes so simple. Anyways, Mathematics spreads out into hundreds of different areas, and actually is all around the world. When building houses, measuring tools, measuring cm, inches, feet, etc are all related to math.

Science
Science is a systematic knowledge that is resulted over a prediction/hypothesis and always has an outcome. It may be also called as a practice or skilled estimation of experiments. Science has developed throughout the ages of human, with one of the most important theories arousing, Evolution. Science has actually defeated religion (from it's tyranny) and has dominated the world until today. Without science, everything would not make sense; for example, there will be no method of knowing how reproduction has occurred, there would be no method of knowing how an ape is similar to humans, etc. Science, with its predictable outcomes, etc, is the guide of telling us how the world has evolved.

How Math, Art, and Science are related
The three subjects are all related because they all have parts of math in it, first of all. Art has perspective and proportion like math does, and Science has it's equations and formulas just like math does. All three have a result from a certain build up.


external image monalisaWho is Da Vinci?!
Da Vinci is an Italian man born in April 15th, 1452 - May 2, 1519. There is a reasont that I have explained about art, science, and math above. It is because this man was a genius at all subjects, known as one of the best men to be one of the best at each subject. His paintings were ingenious, as seen at the left side (Mona Lisa), a very famous drawing by Da Vinci, in which its body is exactly the same on each side. Also, amazingly, professionals have found secret codes in paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, which is very surprising. He was a man of the renaissance times, and his methods are still in study due to the beliefs that there is way more to find out about these ingenious paintings. Anyways, Leonardo Da Vinci has supported in the area of Math by...

Leonardo Da Vinci and Mathematics
First of all, Leonardo Da Vinci was a person who was obsessed in trying to unravel the hidden mysteries in the world, maybe even the universe. Although Leonardo Da Vinci was not the first person in the world to apply brilliant ideas, but he had major contributions in geometric order and patterns (which is related with Art). Da Vinci was another major support of Math like Albert Einstein & Science, and awakening mathematicians from the Dark Age. “He was like a man who awoke too early in the darkness, while others were still asleep” (Brizio, 7). Da Vinci has had major studies in linear perspective, which is part of art and math because; it is related to math due to being perspectives, which refers to angles and precise measurement. His woexternal image sk03davinci.jpgrk in linear perspective was ingenious, actually applying the factor to the majority of his works! The definition of Linear Perspective is, "A 3-D object or a volume of space on a flat surface." He has discovered and has shown that with the usage of mathematics in art and Linear Perspective, he can create a 3-D model of art with just painting a flat person on a sheet of paper. Once again mentioning it, Leonardo's famous and ingenious painting, the Mona Lisa, is a young woman, unknown, sitting in front of a nature-based background dressed in the clothing of the 15th century. There are magnificent studies from this painting; with the use of a X-Axis (horizontal line) Da Vinci was able to draw a imbalanced but balanced painting. In meaning, the painting itself is balanced throughout the painting, but not exact if dividing the paper into two. The trick of this work is the horizontal line. Due to the line, it supports the painting in being able to trick the human eye; the paintings eye are actually imbalanced quite a lot! (Left eye is tilted significantly than the right).

FUN FACT
The Mona Lisa was intrepreted and scienticially compared with Da Vinci's face; scary fact: They are almost the same.


Proportion:
Obviously, Leonardo Da Vinci, like other artists of his time, did not only focus on perspective, but also has focused on the area of proportion. The painting below is entitled as The Last Supper, where he has balance between each side. In terms of balance and proportion, it is just like math; eqaulity. There is one person in the center and equal amounts of people on each side of the picture and if looking at the background and the table, it is known to be as the same. This is an excellent example of proportion and somewhat of perspective.
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The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci, c. 1498
Video Resources: To know more about Da Vinci

About Da Vinci and his creations (inventions, science, engineering, etc)
His Brilliance in Automobiles: Leonardo has created massive and brilliant ideas of automobiles, in which many are inspired of his work.
- He was the first to design the Airplane


About Da Vinci Himself: A Song
Although this video will seem childish, trust me. This video contains one of the valuable equation


About Da Vinci's Work: Contains his magnificent layouts for inventions/research.




Sources:
1. "Mona Lisa." Mona Lisa. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Jan. 2010. <neuronarrative.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/sk03davinci.jpg>.
2. "Local Mason says he’s found secrets embedded in DaVinci's paintings." Freemasonry Watch - Is the Devil in the details? | Freemasons News | Freemason Information. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Jan. 2010. <http://www.freemasonrywatch.org/local.mason.secrets.embedded.davinci.painting.html>.
3. Brizio, Anna Maria, The Painter. Leonardo: The Artist, McGraw-Hill Co., 1980.
4. Emmer, Michele, Art and Mathematics: The Plutonic Solids. The Visual Mind: Art and Mathematics, MIT Press, 1993
5. Pioch, Nicholas, Web Museum, Paris.: Leonardo Da Vinci.
"WebMuseum: Leonardo da Vinci." ibiblio.org - we love project gutenberg!. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Jan. 2010. <http://metalab.unc.edu/wm/paint/auth/vinci/>.
6. Rosstad, Anna, (translated by Ann Zwick), Leonardo Da Vinci: The Man and the Mystery. Ostlands – Postens, Boktrykkeri, 1994.
7. Turner, Richard A., Inventing Leonardo. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1992.Zwijnenberg, Robert, The Writings and Drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci: Order and Chaos in Early Modern Thought. Cambridge University Press, 1999.


Youtube Video Sources:
1. " YouTube - Da Vinci Math ." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. . N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Jan. 2010. <http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Da+Vinci+Math&search_type=&aq=>.
2. " YouTube - Leonardo Da Vinci Automovile (1495) ." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. . N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Jan. 2010. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2qeZrejZp0>.
3. " YouTube - Leonardo da Vinci ." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. . N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Jan. 2010. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaRxQP5LX9w>.