Man Ray, “Le Beau Temps”
Photo Source: flickr
In May, The Washington Post published an article about a group of teachers at Kenmore Middle School in Arlington, Virginia, who collaborated in creating lesson plans that tied together the surrealist art of Man Ray and mathematics. The article explores the many benefits to bringing visual elements to more abstract subject matter, as well as the reasons why art should be integrated into various disciplines rather than be considered to be in a realm of its own. Director of the student art exhibition for the Education Department argues, “‘It’s not just a separate set of skills[…] It’s an integrated set of skills that teaches you about your culture and history…it’s a recognition that everything around you is a combination of the arts and some form of math, technology and engineering.'”
I believe Zimmerman’s point is an excellent one–after all, before the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason, the arts and sciences were considered to be one in the same. It is difficult to define Da Vinci’s sketches of the anatomy or of flying machines as either art or science, because they heavily draw upon elements of both disciplines. There is a reason why the ancient Greeks and Romans didn’t have a word for “art”–back then, every work of art had a function, and it is by this function that the work was defined; thus there was no need to have a separate “art” category. With this idea in mind, it is clear that art can and should be made useful in a variety of courses in math, science, and other disciplines.
To read the article, click on the link!