A publication of the American Communication Association
Stephanie Houston Grey, Louisiana State University
Often the most significant moments of human history began in quotidian and unassuming events, in the serendipity of unexpected encounters and of the bitter disappointments of plans gone awry. So it was when the Quattrocento was in its infancy in Florence, and Filippo Brunelleschi and Lorenzo Ghiberti vied to construct the bronze Baptistry doors for the Church of St. John the Baptist. Ghiberti was chosen, and spent the first half of the 15th century shaping them, while Brunelleschi, in his disillusionment, redefined his art, giving birth to a new form of architecture and establishing linear perspective in painting. In doing so, he facilitated the emergence of a more naturalistic style in the visual arts, and laid the groundwork for the transformation of the bonds between art, science and man. This new-formed relationship became the foundation of the seamless union of science and art and a defining mark of the Renaissance and the modern source of all the questions asked regarding the quintessential characteristics of our humanitas.
With marked admiration for the Classical period’s questions and themes, Renaissance thinkers turned away from the divine explanations to refine and innovate ideas that theorized humans as unique individuals, free and limitless in possibilities but centered in the natural world, community and civic life. In painting, the Italians were noted in particular for their sensuality of texture and color as well as for the curvature and even corpulence of the natural human body. Albrecht Durer not only meticulously studied a hare, but also celebrated himself as a great artist in his self-portrait. Michelangelo jealously guarded his new style and boldly objected to the Pope that Raphael’s famous School at Athens was plagiarism. Leonardo daVinci—legendary for his cadaver dissections, his inquiries into the workings of the human body and of machines and his fascination for discovering the order to the physical universe—connected man on the most minute and grand levels to the processes of nature. Within this new social consciousness, expression and discovery were rendered inseparable; art and science informed one another and their integration became a new way of being in the world.
But such an illustrious beginning to any history of the relationship between art and science would dim in the following centuries. So although these new ways of seeing would spark concerns and questions that pervade modern and contemporary consciousness, one of the most consequential casualties of the demise of the Renaissance was the integral relationship between science and art. As science began to align itself with Enlightenment sensibilities and the concomitant narrow conception of human rationality and its superiority, it sought to separate itself from the emotive and participatory, even in terms of observation. Hence, art, expressive by nature, became an untrustworthy epistemology. Thus Renaissance was a radical departure from conceptions of art and science that both preceded and followed it. To appreciate its unique contribution necessitates a brief examination of how art and science were seen from the Hellenistic period forward and into the Enlightenment. In particular, the differences between Renaissance thinking and that of these other periods reveals a provocative commentary about the nature of what is knowable and the perception of what constitutes a human being. At the crux of this evolution resides the art of rhetoric, itself a refugee from the contest between semblance and the material.
Within the rhetorical tradition, which all too often alloys itself with the history of philosophy, the distinction between knowledge and aesthetics intertwines with issues of cultural authority. In one of the earliest and most extensive discussions dealing with the epistemic function of art, Plato’s Gorgias, Socrates seems to juxtapose art and knowledge as complementary processes in apprehending truth. Yet, here the true arts either have some direct benefit to the body such as medicine, or revolve around dialectical methodologies dealing with invisible, abstract principles. In contrast, the gaudy displays of sophistry constitute a false art that “pretends to be that into which she has crept, and cares nothing for what is best, but dangles what is most pleasant for the moment as a bait for folly, and deceives it into thinking it is of the highest value” (25). For Plato, when one attempts to build an epistemic foundation on appearances, this constitutes a purely mimetic act that is neither art nor knowledge. Given this early categorization of the true arts into abstract dialectics and applied sciences within this system of thought, aesthetic enterprises such as theatre were deemed false—creating the enduring vision that art and science exist at the juncture between the real and the semblance.
Throughout the Hellenistic and early Medieval periods, the arts and sciences operated in an uneasy tension—with science finding its relevance in practical application while the arts, whether pagan or Christian, coming to signify cultural advancement. Through the tradition of ars dictaminis scholars such as Lawrence of Aquilegia provided systematic instruction into the art of the letter, examining how formal information is energized and embellished by the storehouse of rhetorical flourish. Similar observations adorn the work of Robert of Basevorn, who renewed the Ciceronian concern with structure and color when moving an audience via the homiletic endeavor. By the Renaissance, the now familiar bifurcation between knowledge and aesthetics was beginning through the work of Francis Bacon. In his classic treatise The Advancement of Learning (1605) he paraphrases the refrain of Cicero and Augustine, that true persuasion means, “to apply imagination to reason for the better moving of the will” (629). In this simple phrase he encapsulates the aesthetic as the rhetorical workhorse of logic—that through style and visualization the will could be moved by both illustration and emotion. With a series of mutual borrowings and containment, art and science are distinct here but work together, drawing substance from the vocabulary of rhetoric as a means to negotiate their relationship.
As Renaissance humanism and its concomitant emphases on art and science as inextricably linked and its privilege of the civitas lost its power in society, a clear ideological separation between art and science solidified on epistemological and even moral bases. These Enlightenment doctrines ultimately produced the groundwork upon which the entire scientific approach was established. The desire for a transparent language—a symbolic system unburdened by aesthetics—became the obsession of philosophers such as John Locke and Rene Descartes, who sought avenues for making subjective contact with the real by reducing the level of mediation between subject and object. The separate paths of art and science would diverge further from the 18th century onward, developing at least on the surface, suspicion or even animosity. A deep distrust of art as a corruptive influence on true knowledge during a period when scientific epistemology increasingly ruled the day meant even more separation. Art became almost irrelevant in practical matters of understanding the human condition or the physical world.
Despite the attempts of Locke or Descartes, however, the aesthetic remains unacknowledged but imbedded in the philosophical systems of these Enlightenment thinkers. Stephen Daniel (1990) notes, “the world that Descartes’ physics describes recaptures the spirit of poetic invention and acknowledges its fabular ties to those myths of the ancient poets that serve to make some primal chaos epistemologically accessible.” (76). Even through such heroic narratives where scientists view themselves as challenging and decoding the secret language of the spheres, the power of the imaginary continues to make itself apparent in the most rigorous epistemic doctrines. Giambattista Vico (1709) would challenge his contemporaries in his speech On the Study of Methods in Our Time by asserting that reason alone cannot grant one access to truth. Couching his position in a call for Italian national pride, he writes, “we stand far above other nations by our achievements in the fields of painting, sculpture, architecture, and music. Our language, thanks to its perpetual dynamism, forces the attention of the listeners by means of metaphorical expressions, and prompts it to move back and forth between ideas that are far apart” (723). Here Enlightenment progress is dependent upon metaphor. Linguistic tropes play a key role in the production of knowledge by juxtaposing disparate terms to produce new meanings. Rather than relegating art to the realm of appearance, the linguistic medium through which the idea is transmitted becomes a key and inescapable component of the knowledge production itself. Even as science attempted to elude the boundaries of the aesthetic, it remained dependant upon it via the rhetorical commerce between institutional constituents.
Yet beneath this ebb and flow of the often profoundly deconstructive nature of art resided its ability to aid understanding of the external world, as Renaissance thinkers well knew. Nicholas Wade et al. (2001) suggest that the source of Leonardo da Vinci’s interest in art and painting stemmed from his fascination with the way that what he saw with two eyes could not be simulated on a two-dimensional canvas. Perhaps the epistemic problem that vexed him was one of mediation and the way that certain forms of representation shaped human experience. Kenneth Burke (1969) would make a similar observation toward the end of his Grammar of Motives when he writes, “instead of calling them the necessary forms of experience, however, [call them] necessary forms of talk about experience. For our concern here is primarily with the analysis of language rather than with the analysis of reality” (317). Art creates such an acute challenge for epistemology because it revisits the question of mediation, questioning the presumption that language can provide the cover of invisibility Locke promised. While rhetoric was a medium of exchange, art became a vehicle for contemplation.
For centuries the connections between art and science have been implicit, unappreciated and largely ignored. A new set of global exigencies, spurred on by the complexity of questions that no discipline can answer or even fully engage has sparked a resurgence of the Renaissance impulse. For some scholars a focus upon the ways in which meaning is made is felt acutely as epistemic dread. Drawing from the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, Steve Whitson and John Poulakis (1993) suggest, “signs do not refer to the reality of things themselves, but summon aesthetic forms that left unsummoned would remain indistinguishable bits of phenomenal being” (136). From this standpoint, the artistic underpinnings of language represent reality, meaning that science is itself the illusion. In these more radical forms of critique, art is likened to a form of political or social instability that challenges the foundation of knowledge production itself as perceptual effect. The interconnection of art and science so prevalent in the Renaissance resides at the core of this anxiety. As has been noted, da Vinci frequently attempted to express scientific principles and dilemmas in artistic venues. One of the first disciplines usually associated with aesthetics was that of music, a poetic enterprise that had a profoundly intimate relationship with mathematics—particularly the idea that certain musical rhythms and chord combinations seemed to produce differing psychological effects. Myles Jackson (2001) notes, “natural philosophers such as Johannes Kepler, Galileo Lalilei, and Christian Hyguns busied themselves with similar problems. They also attempted to explain consonance and dissonance in terms of physical, physiological, and at times psychological processes” (106-115). In a contemporary expression of this notion, Thomas Jacobsen (2006) articulates a need for what he terms the “psychology of aesthetics,” an intellectual movement that attempts to create a systematic account for why art functions as it does across social contexts. He explains, “a strongly interdisciplinary version of this branch of psychology could present a general unified account of the mental processing of aesthetics. It would serve to build bridges between the arts and sciences, having strong ties to both realms” (155). Certainly one sees commonalities and universal themes permeating artistic expression over the past four centuries.
New problems require the rediscovery of an old approach. Science alone cannot provide sufficient understanding of our place in a fragile and threatened natural world, or coping mechanisms for public health challenges. Our interlocutions with our world and ourselves in this mass mediated age are largely visual or metaphorical. Thus the boundaries between art and science are once again increasingly difficult to maintain in society. In his attempt to account for the impact that new technologies and the postmodern economy have had upon the practice of science, Jean-Francois Lyotard (1982) writes that scientific knowledge “unlike narrative knowledge, is no longer a direct and shared component of the bond. But it is directly a component of it because it develops into a profession and gives rise to institutions, and in modern language games consolidate themselves in the form of institutions run by qualified partners (the professional class)” (25). Yet these demarcations between the vulgar realm of the popular and the rarified realm of science have begun to erode. Rather than simply expanding the distance between the scientific and the popular, technology often functions to close this gap—creating its own form of spectacle. Barbara Stafford (1993) writes, “microscopes—like many present-day photonic gadgets—fulfilled the long-standing human yearning for visually entering entirely different realms. Experimentation on vanishing entities, in particular, popularized disengaged and disembodied witnessing.” (98) Thus the narrative knowledge Lyotard mentions remains intrinsic to the representation of science, its advancement, and its embodiment certainly at least within the public sphere.
Digital technologies are further closing the gap between art and industry as beauty and functionality are themselves blurred (London, 2001). In some ways the advent of digital technologies returns us to the Platonic anxiety regarding knowledge production and exhibition. Art is well positioned to inform global problems as well as to provide the perspective that can round out a holistic portrait of these concerns. The nascence of the reconvergence of science and art is already visible in the academic dialogue and the policy discussion. For example, the BRIDGES Consortium, a group of artists, technologists and scientists from public and academic institutions and the private sector, are exploring interdisciplinary collaboration at the intersections of art, science and technology. The group is addressing the traditional stumbling blocks to this kind of community, including the role of language and cultural context for technology (Pearce et al., 2003). At the forefront in using the science-art connection has been medicine and biotechnology. Science fiction is now viewed as a negotiator between tensions and inconsistencies and a “mode of legitimization” for biotech and biomedicine. It even functions as a social critique of their limitations, a valuable corrective for their own sometimes aggrandizing vision of the future (Thacker 2001, 155). The Human Genome Project has fostered an artistic movement that dialogues and critiques it, sparking an explosion of interdisciplinary research and collaborative efforts between scientists and artists. Murray (2007) writes, “projects in digital and technological art have articulated with prophetic forcefulness the complex sociocultural challenges facing humanists in an increasingly corporatized intellectual and political culture” (162). Genetic art also takes on the significant challenge of understanding the contested notion of the public for whom the art is intended as well as engaging those publics in appropriate and meaningful ways to understand the world that genetics has changed (Lynch 2007). Even comic books have played an important role in the portrayal of the medical profession to the masses (Hansen 2004). The challenge confronting contemporary scholars who explore the creative fusions and contests between art and science is to articulate how society manages the tensions between representation, medium, and cultural authority.
Given the significance of these issues, the American Communication Journal presents the following essays, whose authors grapple with the complex and contested domain that exists between art and science within America’s historically experimentalist culture. Each focuses upon the confluence of art and aesthetics within various discursive fields in order to illuminate how these forces have shaped national identity. In the first essay, Nathan Crick examines the writings of Henry David Thoreau for his use of poetic language to demonstrate how humans are interconnected with their natural universe. Employing what Crick refers to as a “transcendental ecology,” the portrait of Thoreau that emerges in this analysis focuses upon his use of the sublime—a force present within nature—to create a more humane science that need not conflate discovery and environmental exploitation. The next author is also concerned with the use of art to mediate between science and nature. Larry Lambert examines the paintings of J. Alden Weir, whose technological landscapes fostered ambiguity within the nineteenth century belief that technological progress represented a civilizing force within the American landscape. Challenging the seamless realism of the period, Lambert’s analysis of Weir reveals a corpus that presents an intricate and sometimes conflicted relationship between industrial architecture and nature. These pieces attempt to denaturalize technological progress and to create ambiguous spaces in which new political and cultural contingencies can emerge.The next series of essays examines how certain forms of cultural representation ranging from our lived environment to photojournalism use aesthetics to grapple with authenticity. For Andrew King, the craftsman movement initiated by Robert Morris demonstrates one of the most enduring attempts to resist the dehumanization of the industrial revolution by providing a humane space through which art can enrich our most basic experience. According to King, this aesthetic movement challenged rarified standardization and activated individual agency by linking function and beauty through the production of lived space and the tools used to perform everyday tasks. Perhaps King’s most insightful contribution is his recognition that aesthetics play a key role in shaping the character of those who move through functional interiors. Using her expertise in the field of journalistic ethics, Peggy Bowers extends this exploration into the sphere of photojournalism. In the same way that craftsmanship influences functionality, the use of artistic conventions and templates subtly interlocute with one of the most intimate and enduring expressions of American self-realization—the newspaper. In her essay, various photographic images through which the public knows itself come to life as she probes the subtle aesthetic devices that photojournalists often use to frame the subjects of their work. From the photographic to the moving image, Thomas Vaughn shatters the myth that silent film comedian Buster Keaton failed to translate into the sound era. This essay suggests instead that his highly popular films produced during the sound period provided a stage upon which the silent clown was never able to be fully heard. At the heart of this performance is the recognition that sound film provided a systematic shift in the ethical patterns of American culture—rendering older more romantic forms antiquated.
In the final two essays, the authors look at the ruptures that occur when art, politics, and science collide in the struggle to represent and control human experience. Carey Marie Noland and Isabel Meirelles examine the political ramifications of nutrition through the controversy surrounding the 2005 revision of the classic food pyramid. Here the use of specific patterns of coloration to depict the shifting concerns regarding human nutrition becomes a point of political contest that vexes the process of transmitting scientific data to the public sphere. The spaces among art, science and politics are further complicated in Stephanie Houston Grey’s exploration of Lucinda Devlin’s Omega Suites and Gunther von Hagens’ Bodyworlds. This essay explores the implicit promise of science to sanitize death by creating an embodied aesthetic that transcends mere semblance. As both Devlin and von Hagen come to the field of exhibition from opposite ends, one an artist capturing the essence of death in American death chambers and the other a German physician capturing the essence of life through plastinated cadavers, the myth of scientific progress comes under critical scrutiny rather than being reinforced. While this rhetoric appears to represent efficient movement, it masks a form of institutionalized violence that lurks beneath the surface where real bodies, now visible to the general public, are controlled, scanned, probed and rendered lifeless in dehumanizing ways.
Thus the struggle that Brunelleschi and Ghiberti began has come full circle. Where architecture became a focal point for the integration of art and engineering, the proliferation of new technologies has led to an explosion in mediation. At the center of this exchange resides the art of rhetoric as the vehicle through which these ideas are both transmitted and constituted. Because both art and rhetoric, as unique domains, focus upon mediation, their influence within the physical and technological structures that shape human consciousness functions as a critical, creative force within the scientific enterprise increasingly authorized to define nature, society and, of course, man himself. Given these and a profusion of other changes in culture, this century may see a renewed exploration of the various means through which the union between art and science can be exploited to create a more humane world. The germination of a new perspective on the human condition and the integration of art and science that came to light at the dawn of the 15th century is reemerging. The essays in this volume represent a starting point for interest in their reintegration within the field of communication. Given the centrality of representation to the work of artists, scientists, and those who exist somewhere in the middle, disciplinary expertise in language, visual depiction, and the ethical contours of epistemology is crucial to understanding this phenomenon. These authors provide new insights into this continuing debate echoing across millennia into an uncertain future.
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ISSN: 1532-5865 Copyright 2008 American Communication Journal. All rights reserved.