Aesthetics
and Visualization in Chemistry
(including Virtual Art Exhibition: Chemistry
in Art)
by Tami I. Spector & Joachim Schummer,
Eds.
Hyle Publications, Volume 9, (No. 1 and
2), 2003
243 pp. Paper, 23Î
ISSN: 143305158.
Reviewed by Amy Ione
The Diatrope Institute
ione@diatrope.com
Many painters who buy their tubed
paints off the shelf today have little
exposure to how artists prior to the nineteenth
century worked with the finely ground
minerals that were extracted from the
earth and used for pigment. Nor do they
recognize how closely art practice was
intertwined with alchemy. In order to
understand how to bind and mix paints,
the artist needed to develop some measure
of sensitivity to transmutability and,
as such, knowledge of the chemistry of
alchemy aided the artistic practice. We
see elements of the exchange between art
and alchemy frequently in the works themselves,
where an artist might depict the mortar
and pestle in his studio, or perhaps a
distillation apparatus, or even the alchemist
himself at work in his laboratory. Equally
fascinating is our knowledge that the
transition to the view that painting was
an activity of the mind, which happened
around the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
occurred at a time when chemistry (then
known as alchemy) found itself in a position
similar to painting. Alchemists, too,
were fighting the view that they were
merely involved in a craft. When chemistry
was recognized as a full science,
in the eighteenth century, both practical
and theoretical approaches to art had
already, in effect, lost sight of the
degree to which some knowledge of chemistry
aided artists. Although chemical knowledge
and discoveries continued to remain important
in the manufacture and use of materials,
collaborative efforts remained in the
background. Views of aesthetics and the
path of the academic tradition downplayed
areas of overlap.
This history came to mind repeatedly while
reading the special issue on Aesthetics
and Visualization in Chemistry by
Tami I. Spector and Joachim Schummer,
a far-reaching selection that conveys
the many ways in which chemistry intersects
with art practice, philosophy, history,
and scientific visualization. Although
none of the essays explicitly looked at
how historical art practice incorporated
the practices that were a precursor to
the chemistry within alchemical practice,
several touched on the symbolic, aesthetic,
and philosophical legacy that the arts
and alchemy shared. Many, too, convey
where the creative concerns of the artist
and the chemist converge.
Each of the two volumes of this publication
had a unique flavor. The essays in the
first volume brought
to mind the tension between chemistrys
aesthetic qualities and experience in
the studio/lab. The contributors also
brought to light some positive definitional
tensions among art, chemistry, and aesthetics.
The opening essay by Roald Hoffman sets
the stage. He speaks to chemistry as an
art, craft, business, and science of substances
and communicates the importance of drawing
to experimental design. His framing of
aesthetics in terms of the labor of human
minds and hearts was convincing, as was
his placement of the messier aspects of
chemistry within the realm we associate
with the artists studio. "Experience"
is also a factor incorporated into Pierre
Laszlos prolegomena to a
chemical aesthetics, in which he presents
11 separate theses that were contradictory
in form (e.g., two are his theses
are that the natural is more beautiful,
and, conversely, the artificial is more
beautiful). This author conveyed the mutability
of chemistry and how difficult it is to
wedge it into any materialist worldview.
Laszlo also nicely captures that chemists,
like artists, learn from experiments.
Particularly effective was the way he
brings to the fore the importance of smells
and colors in chemistry and balanced this
with the need for visualization.
In terms of traditional ideas, Joachim
Schummer expanded view on practices and
epistemological questions was quite useful.
This author incorporates a philosophical
history that spoke to circumstances that
have influenced how we see art, aesthetics,
and chemistry. As he correctly explains,
in idealistic aesthetics, the dominating
doctrine in the Western tradition since
Plato, there is no place for the senses
of taste, smell, touch, and color, as
there is no place for the sensations of
material qualities other than representing
the opposite of beauty. His systematic
investigation of the aesthetics of chemical
products distinguishes between three types
of chemical products, (materials, molecules,
and molecular models) and, then, aligns
them with aesthetic theories. By combining
the chemical overview with aesthetics
history, Schummer demonstrates that many
aesthetic theories are poorly developed.
He also makes a convincing case for chemistrys
power to shift our perspective. "Rather
than the putative beauty of chemical products,
further investigations should explore
where and how aesthetic experience becomes
part or even a driving force of the research
process" (p. 99).
The second volume focuses more on historical
episodes. Barbara Obrist explores major
trends in visualization during the medieval
period in her article, "Visualization
in Medieval Alchemy." Analyzing theories
of natural and artificial transformations
of substances in relation to their philosophical
and theological bases, she traces three
different pictorial types from the thirteenth
to the fifteenth century, examines lists
and tables, geometrical figures, depictions
of furnaces and apparatus, and figurative
elements from both the vegetable and animal
realms. This range allows her to explain
that alchemy was not merely a contemplative
discipline and that its operations resulted
in innovations. She also effectively shows
that alchemy differs from chemistry, although
I do not agree with her view that the
work of alchemists should not be considered
a part of the history of chemistry. Richly
illustrated with 15 figures, the visuals
aid her immensely in conveying visualization
in medieval alchemy. Obrists conclusion,
that the symbolic representation eventually
gave way to images of apparatus in practice
oriented alchemical writings, led nicely
into David Knights investigation
of illustrations made precisely to visually
represent chemical dynamics in chemistry
per se. He postulates that it was
with Lavoisiers Elements
(1789) that the place of imagination and
symbolic language in chemistry was much
reduced. Indeed, this chemist moved the
illustrations from metaphor to science.
As a result, he was instrumental in transforming
the scope for aesthetic judgment and imagination
in this field.
The highlight of the volume is the virtual
exhibition. Although my computer was not
compatible with the enclosed CD-Rom, I
was delighted to find that the juried
selection, "Chemistry in Art" and the
curatorial project (jointly directed by
art critic David Spalding and Tami Spector)
are accessible through the web (see http://www.hyle.org/art/cia/files/index.htm).
"Chemistry in Art" grew out of a call
for papers and offers an incredible contrast
in ways we might think of art and chemistry
combinations. Included are projects and
installations by Blair G. Bradshaw, David
Clark, Erich Füllgrabe, Brigitte
Hitschler, Lane E. Last, Paula L. Levine,
Christopher Puzio, Cheryl Safren, and
Tamar Schori. Of particular note is "Chemical
Vision: The Science Museum of Metachemistry"
by David Clark, from the Nova Scotia College
of Art and Design, Canada, who received
a special award for his contribution.
As he explains on the website:
"Chemical Vision is a large-scale,
walk-through interactive installation
that has resonances of a science museum.
Architecturally, it is derived from the
shape of the periodic table, or more specifically
the Meyer table that has become synonymous
with periodic lawan image
which has become a meta-sign of the discipline
of chemistry itself."
This curatorial project, on the other
hand, aimed to highlight chemistry-related
artworks by renowned artists Kim Abeles,
Cai Guo Qiang, Susan Robb, Fred Tomaselli,
and Shirley Tse.
The one essay I found disappointing was
the Elkins piece, "Four Ways of Measuring
the Distance Between Alchemy and Contemporary
Art." His aim is to explain both why alchemy
is central to contemporary visual art
and why it is marginal as well. Although
he claims to incorporate the history of
chemistry, I found little within the article
that looked at the fields experimental
history, particularly as it related to
alchemy. It seemed, instead, Elkins
thoughts are primarily built around alchemical
images and ideas. He concludes:
A strategy of current painting, as well
as the older alchemists, is to increase
the feeling of meaning, the sense
that meaning is present without the forced
quality of naked written meanings. A feeling
of meaning is an intuition of meaning,
the result of mingling "word" and "image",
emblem and picture. The result is an incomplete
fusion: in viewers terms, it
asks for incomplete reading and incomplete
viewing. Recent painting has achieved
objects that are neither word nor image,
and they stand directly on the heritage
of alchemy. That, I think is the deepest
connection between the history of alchemy
and contemporary art, and one that is
still waiting to be explored." (p. 115)
I would have preferred more exploration
of this history. Instead of concretely
grappling with the alchemical experience
and the gained knowledge that allowed
the experimental side of the work to build
basic understandings of how transformation
took place, too much of the article centered
on the incorrect responses by readers
to his book What Painting Is (an
earlier attempt by Elkins to equate the
process of painting with alchemy). I can
recall how, when reading the book, I thought
his descriptions of the process of painting
established some acquaintance with studio
experience and, yet, for some inexplicable
reason, the "alchemical" focus was predominantly
theoretical, symbolic, and metaphysical.
I found it quite Jungian and was not surprised
to discover (in his Hyle essay)
that many thought he offered a Jungian
view in the book. His efforts in this
essay to clarify why this conclusion is
incorrect did not work for me. Overall,
his dual-sided argument fails to acknowledge
the degree to which gaining knowledge
through experimental work with materials
and techniques was operative under the
alchemical umbrella and is still operative
in some quarters today. Interpretations
that focus on layers of meaning and the
narratives that support each layer fit
easily into the art historical tradition
in which the mind is (and was) elevated.
Indeed, as his article reminded me, the
symbolic/metaphysical framework that came
to define theorizing about art has obscured
the degree to which scientific knowledge,
technological innovation, and the ability
to work materials effectively are equal
partners in art practices of earlier eras.
In summary, Aesthetics and Visualization
in Chemistry is a solid and comprehensive
contribution to the literature. The exhibition
combines nicely with the scientific theoretical
ideas. Historical and contemporary topics
offer a balance. Similarly, the way in
which modes of visualization are woven
through the writings is thought provoking.
Throughout the issue it is clear that
alchemy did provide a theoretical framework
that enabled experimenters to make some
sense of the changes that the agencies
of fire, water, air, vapors, and time
wrought on materials just as chemistry
continues to provide a rich source of
inspiration for art today. This issue
also offers a taste of the aesthetic cognition
of the chemist and exposes fascinating
intersections between art and chemistry
today. Finally, it was fun to read and
review this volume. Aside from the stimulating
exhibition, which elevated the project
significantly, several of the writers
added notations that reminded me of why
Ive always seen chemistry as the
most magical of all of the sciences. Chemistry
became "human" in my favorite essay of
the volume, by Robert Root-Bernstein and
titled "Sensual Chemistry." Root-Bernstein
succeeded in conveying that the experience
of chemistry as an aesthetic combines
the hands-on and cognitive experience.
His arguments are held together through
his references to Hubert N. Alyea, who
taught his introductory chemistry at Princeton.
According to Root-Bernstein, this professor
made chemistry come alive to him as well
as other students. Indeed, he was so popular
at Princeton that hundreds of alumni packed
the chemistry auditorium every year to
watch Alyea convert Yale colors (blue
and white) into Princetons colors
(orange and black). After reading this,
I found myself telling everyone the story,
and, as a result, the issue successfully
stimulated a great deal of conversation
about chemistry with my colleaguesno
doubt a positive recommendation in and
of itself.