Connections between the Geological Sciences and Visual Art: Historical Perspectives and Personal Expression in Artwork

Abstract

Visual art and the geological sciences share common threads that are worthy of exploration. In the first part of this article, I give a brief and selective historical perspective of interaction between these two disciplines, beginning with the cave paintings of Lascaux some 15,000 years ago, in aspects of Chinese art, in Leonardo da Vinci’s work, in nineteenth-century landscape painting, and in various features of twentieth-century art. In the second part, I briefly consider how aesthetics entered into my scientific work and give examples of my current photography, painting, and constructivist sculpture. Most of these works contain conceptual or physical components of rock at some level. I discuss the potentialfor using geological concepts and materials as metaphors of the human condition, the human transformation, and inner exploration directed toward self-knowledge.