Ourth Dimension in Art
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Transcript of Ourth Dimension in Art
ourth dimension in artFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An illustration from Jouffret's Traité élémentaire de géométrie à quatre dimensions. The book, which influenced Picasso,
was given to him by Princet.
New possibilities opened up by the concept of four-dimensional space (and difficulties involved in trying to
visualize it) helped inspire many modern artists in the first half of the twentieth century.
Early Cubists, Surrealists, Futurists, and abstract artists took ideas from higher-dimensional mathematics and
used them to radically advance their work.[1]
Contents
[hide]
1 Early influence
2 Dimensionist Manifesto
3 Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus)
4 Abstract art
5 Other forms of art
6 See also
7 References
8 Sources
9 Further reading
10 External links
Early influence[edit]
Picasso's Portrait ofDaniel-Henry Kahnweiler, 1910, The Art Institute of Chicago.
Dalí's 1954 paintingCrucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus)
French mathematician Maurice Princet was known as "le mathématicien du cubisme" ("the mathematician of
cubism").[2] An associate of the School of Paris, a group of avant-gardists including Pablo Picasso, Guillaume
Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Jean Metzinger, and Marcel Duchamp, Princet is credited with introducing the work
of Henri Poincaré and the concept of the "fourth dimension" to the cubists at the Bateau-Lavoir in the late
1900s.[3]
Princet introduced Picasso to Esprit Jouffret's Traité élémentaire de géométrie à quatre
dimensions (Elementary Treatise on the Geometry of Four Dimensions, 1903),[4] a popularization of
Poincaré's Science and Hypothesis in which Jouffret described hypercubes and other complex polyhedra in
four dimensions and projected them onto the two-dimensional page. Picasso's Portrait of Daniel-Henry
Kahnweiler in 1910 was an important work for the artist, who spent many months shaping it.[5] The portrait
bears similarities to Jouffret's work and shows a distinct movement away from the Proto-
Cubist fauvism displayed in Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, to a more considered analysis of space and form.[6]
Early cubist Max Weber wrote an article entitled "In The Fourth Dimension from a Plastic Point of View",
for Alfred Stieglitz's July 1910 issue of Camera Work. In the piece, Weber states, "In plastic art, I believe, there
is a fourth dimension which may be described as the consciousness of a great and overwhelming sense of
space-magnitude in all directions at one time, and is brought into existence through the three known
measurements."[7]
Another influence on the School of Paris was that of Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes, both painters and
theoreticians. The first major treatise written on the subject of Cubism was their 1912 collaboration Du
"Cubisme", which says that:
"If we wished to relate the space of the [Cubist] painters to geometry, we should have to refer it to the non-
Euclidian mathematicians; we should have to study, at some length, certain of Riemann's theorems."[8]
In a review of the 1913 Armory Show for the Philadelphia Enquirer, the influence of the fourth dimension on
avante-garde painting was discussed; the paper's art-critic describing how the artists' employed "..harmonic
use of what may arbitrarily be called volume".[9]
Dimensionist Manifesto[edit]
In 1936 in Paris, Charles Tamkó Sirató published his Manifeste Dimensioniste, which described how "the
Dimensionist tendency has led to:[10]
1. Literature leaving the line and entering the plane.
2. Painting leaving the plane and entering space.
3. Sculpture stepping out of closed, immobile forms.
4. ...The artistic conquest of four-dimensional space, which to date has been completely art-free."
The manifesto was signed by many prominent modern artists worldwide. Hans Arp, Francis
Picabia, Kandinsky, Robert Delaunay and Marcel Duchamp amongst others added their names in Paris, then a
short while later it was endorsed by artists abroad including László Moholy-Nagy, Joan Miró, David
Kakabadze,Alexander Calder, and Ben Nicholson.[10]
Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus)[edit]
In 1953, surrealist Salvador Dalí proclaimed his intention to paint "an explosive, nuclear and hypercubic"
crucifixion scene.[11][12] He said that, "This picture will be the great metaphysical work of my summer".
[13] Completed the next year, Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) depicts Jesus Christ upon the net of a
hypercube, also known as a tesseract. The unfolding of a tesseract into eight cubes is analogous to unfolding
the sides of a cube into six squares. The Metropolitan Museum of Art describes the painting as a "new
interpretation of an oft-depicted subject. ..[showing] Christ's spiritual triumph over corporeal harm."[14]
Abstract art[edit]
Some of Piet Mondrian's (1872–1944) abstractions and his practice of Neoplasticism are said to be rooted in
his view of a utopian universe, with perpendiculars visually extending into another dimension.[15]
Other forms of art[edit]
Main article: Fourth dimension in literature
The Fourth dimension has been the subject of numerous fictional stories.[16]