Maths and art
Intersections between mathematics and artistic expressions: music, painting, architecture, design
Astro: street art and optical illusions | Tangente
A painter and visual artist, Astro favors random structures and elementary geometric forms in both his paintings and his murals. Trompe-l'oeil, anamorphoses and other optical illusions also interest this self-taught artist.
World harmony dictated by mathematics | Tangente
Beginning with painting, Leonardo da Vinci developed a vision of world harmony governed by mathematics.
Leonardo da Vinci: various perspectives | Tangente
Among Leonardo da Vinci's many talents, his ability to reveal the many facets of perspective—all explored in his work—was by no means the least. Having mastered vanishing-point perspective, he went on to explore atmospheric perspective and then the technique of sfumato.
Luca Pacioli, Leonardo's mathematician friend | Tangente
Luca Pacioli would play a major role in the life of Leonardo da Vinci, who used his mathematical knowledge both to depict polyhedra and to improve techniques of perspective drawing.
The artist as geometer
Artist, genius and gifted inventor, Leonardo da Vinci was a visionary. In a world only just emerging from the Middle Ages, and long before René Descartes, he understood the importance of the scientific method and the role of mathematics in understanding the world.
South America: Fondation Cartier's ode to geometry | Tangente
Until 24 February 2019, Fondation Cartier is exploring the presence of geometry in art across South America, from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego, spanning pre-Columbian and contemporary art as well as Indigenous American cultures.
Christian Lavigne | Tangente
Visual artist Christian Lavigne's work achieves a beautiful alchemy of mathematics, art, poetry and, above all, digital sculpture, a field in which he is a leading figure. He created the first French digital sculpture produced using additive manufacturing.
Tangente awards 2018
Ever since Napoleon's coronation in 1804, 2 December has been a day for coronations. Here are the many winners of Club Tangente's 2018 competitions and prizes, honoured at the Musée des Arts et Métiers.
How virtual images are created
How are realistic video-game landscapes created? How can a character and their clothes be made to move as fluidly as possible? The temporary exhibition "Sous la surface, les maths", designed by the Institut Henri-Poincaré and hosted by the musée des Arts et Métiers, explains everything.
François Morellet: concrete art and geometry | Tangente
The exhibition "L'esprit de suite," on view at the Musée Angladon in Avignon, offers an opportunity to (re)discover the artist François Morellet.
The Bohemian dome
You are certainly familiar with the torus, obtained by rotating a circle about an axis lying in the circle's plane. But what happens if we change the circle's position? We obtain a surface that has long been known and used in architecture...
Blake and Mortimer: mathematics in the comics
Scientists are rare among comic-book heroes. Mathematicians are rarer still! One of the most famous scientists among them is Professor Philip Mortimer, from the "Blake and Mortimer" series. Let's examine his relationship with the queen of the sciences.
Kinetic art and geometry: Vasarely, Le Parc, Morellet
The last time Argentine sculptor and painter Julio Le Parc exhibited in New York was in 1973. The artist has just brought a successful exhibition in Paris to a close at the Perrotin gallery in the 3rd arrondissement. In the meantime, kinetic art had faded from view.
Objects that embody knowledge
A mathematical object is a concept arising from... mathematics. The objects featured in this saga are physical ones, of interest not only mathematically but also historically, educationally and aesthetically. They illustrate concepts and make them easier to understand.
Trompe-l'oeil geometry: razzle dazzle camouflage
Hard though it may be to believe, geometry has sometimes helped to fight the enemy in wartime—or at least to limit the severity of its attacks.
Fibonacci in concrete art: mathematics and aesthetics
The famous Fibonacci sequence begins 1, 1, 2… and each term is the sum of the previous two. It abounds in surprising properties. Has it finally yielded all its secrets? That remains a mystery, as some artists are now working with it and exploring it from every angle.
A nest of theorems
Heron's formula is strikingly simple. All the more remarkably, it provides a highly effective way to prove other, equally elegant results. It even leads to more fascinating problems in geometry!
The vector art manifesto – Maths brief | Tangente
The Scowcza collective creates works of vector art. You have already come across several of them in the articles in this issue
Gaston Darboux: geometer and artist
Gaston Darboux, whom we commemorate this year, died a century ago. Throughout his life, he remained "a young man of the rarest learning and the highest promise," and he left behind a considerable body of work. His geometric results on orthogonal surfaces are spectacular.
Ulysse Lacoste: art, mathematics and performance
Mathematics, art, poetry, craftsmanship, kinematics, performance… Ulysse Lacoste's work embraces all this and more, blurring boundaries in pursuit of a distinctive alchemy that sets this singular artist's approach apart.