During a recent trip to an art museum, it immediately became clear to me that most, if not all the pieces of art exhibited used mathematics in some way. Whether through shape or form or perspective, geometry, or symmetry, most of the art could be viewed as to have some relationship with mathematics. Paintings and sculptures, furniture pieces and abstract pieces alike all had some semblance of a rapport with math. Portraits and paintings can be found to use perspective to give life to their subjects. Furniture pieces like chairs and armoires are sturdy, geometric constructions. Even abstract artwork, which seems to have no rhythm at all, was likely planned out and may have used symmetry or asymmetry to create balance. Despite the vast amount of artwork from which to pick, one piece stood out to me as having been engineered by an artist with a particular affinity for mathematics.
While perusing the gallery, I came across a piece called Five Blues, created by Rasheed Araeen. Araeen was English, but Pakistani-born in 1935. The piece he created was quite large, appearing to be five identical vertical bars mounted on the wall. The piece, while decidedly not a Renaissance-esque fresco or an ancient, meticulously crafted sculpture, was still beautiful because of minimalist simplicity. When viewing the piece, I noted that it had a distinct root in the De Stijl style of architecture, particularly regarding the blue coloring and the straight, perpendicular lines. It also uses diagonal lines, however, which were quite controversial during that time period, as it was questionable whether they veritable adhered to true DeStijl.
Araeen’s piece consists of five blue structures, much taller than they were wide, set next to each other to create a sort of box. I estimate the entire piece to be around eight or nine feet tall by five feet wide. Each structure was three-dimensional and sturdy in appearance. They appeared to have been made of steel or some other metal, and when I looked closer to the description I was surprised to find they were simply wood and paint. The blue structures are tall towers with diagonal supports running from the bottom to the top, creating triangular shapes when viewed head-on.
One of the things that drew me to the piece besides the sheer simplicity of it was the shadows that the structures were casting on the stark, white wall on which they were set. I would argue that the shadows are almost more beautiful than the piece, and one can see what I am talking about by glancing at the photograph below. The geometric shapes cast a harsh geometric shadow on the wall, which is almost unnatural in nature but extremely interesting to look at.
Once I read the description for Five Blues, I understood the creator to have an intimate knowledge of mathematics and art. Araeen had a strong background in civil engineering before creating this piece, which, upon second glance, is definitely influenced by engineering principles. The study of engineering is highly rooted in mathematics, and it is no surprise that the precision of the piece is tantamount to that which only an engineer could accomplish. For instance, the boxes are held together by braces and created with a lattice construction technique, which is used to give buildings a sturdy foundation. It was interesting, however, to see it as a standalone piece, because the meticulous bracing and crossing pieces of wood weren’t holding anything up at all.
Mathematics is clearly visible in the piece through the angular lines that are repetitively used throughout. The angles at which the wood is placed are extremely precise so as to create perfect, equilateral triangles. The artist quite evidently considered the mathematical implications of the piece before embarking on his artistic journey, and it is clear that he used his engineering background as a way to merge his passion for mathematics with art. Five Blues may be simple, but its true beauty lies in its mathematical origins of the artwork.
