Science and Art
At my recent Waldorf Science Curriculum Presentation at the Trillium Waldorf school in Guelph, I invited the participants to use a Phenomenological, Goethean Scientific process to explore the content and complex relationships and ultimately message of this wonderful painting by Joseph Wright. That’s right, we used a scientific process to find out way to a deeper understanding of a work of art. An engaging 45 minute discussion ensued in which we progressively worked our way from what we saw in the painting (objective – earth mode), the relationships and movement we observed (water mode), what each of the characters are expressing (air mode) and lastly the essence, meaning or message of this work of art (fire mode). Two days later I received these poetic insights from one of the participants, a biodynamic farmer no less:
On my way home from the Trillium evening, the following word/play came my way… The bumper sticker for the bird in the jar painting we looked at might be something along these lines: “A vacuum abhors nature too…”
As a rhyming couplet, may be:
“Which one does, the other, more…
Nature or a Vacuum…abhor?”
How delicious it is when art and science play together so harmoniously.
Thank you Mark!
Here is a link to more on Phenomenology and Goethean Science.
I just returned from a science presentation that I made to a group of independent school educators at the CAIS Best Practices Conference. I only had time for a brief talk and then led them trough a similar series of observational experiments with candles just as we did in Guelph. By the end of our short hour, one of the teachers was on her knees staring at the candle, exclaiming, “Wow!” She was seeing it in a way that she never had and was clearly captivated by the experience. Considering that she has a masters degree in physics, this was quite an honour. She was completely engrossed in the act of studying the phenomena of a candle and its process of burning. I am looking forward to emailing her your poetry and continuing the dialogue about the potential for a phenomonological approach to teaching sciences.
01 May 2010 at 5:21 pm
poetry is the thing i like, i create poems during my spare time,~*
13 Sep 2010 at 8:45 pm