This curriculum unit integrates science and art, specifically connecting the physics of light and visual understanding. In her book
Vision and Art: The Biology of Seeing,
Harvard neurobiologist Margaret Livingstone explores and explains the inner workings of vision. Her research and work demonstrates how we see art ultimately depends on the cells in our eyes and our brains. Using Livingstone's book as a foundation and springboard, this unit covers the fundamentals of light, the biology of vision, and the connection between the two. How do our eyes and brains coordinate to perceive line and color? How do elements like perspective, luminance, color mixing and shading produce certain effects in art work?
Science and art naturally overlap. Both are a means of investigation. They both involve testing ideas, theories, and hypotheses as mind and hand come together, whether in the laboratory or the studio. Artists, like scientists, study materials, people, culture, history, and religion and learn to transform information into something else. In ancient Greece, the word for art was techne, from which technique and technology are derived—terms that are applied to both scientific and artistic practices.