timewerx
the village i--o--t--
Artists, the great ones, always apprehend something important about the universe, usually without being aware of the science behind it.
Fractal analysis of the paintings
When looking at Pollock’s work, Professor Taylor found staggering examples of Pollock’s use or accidental inclusion of fractals (the artist, as far as we know, never commented on them). Taylor took 20 canvases from a nine-year period when Pollock was honing and perfecting his drip paintings. The physicist scanned photographic versions of the paintings (as some are now valued at more than $30million he was unable to work with the originals). With these scanned versions Taylor used complex computer programs to divide the images into areas less than 2mm across. Looking at the images from this distance, Taylor concluded that the paintings contained similar fractal patterns to those found in nature.
It is one thing being able to painting simple fractal structures, but if you’ve ever seen a Pollock in a gallery (the Tate Modern in London has some, as does MoMA in New York) then you’ll know that the drip paintings are not simple. These large-scale paintings, sometimes many meters long, are complex and appear random. The idea that someone could have placed fractals into the painting, sometimes minute in their size, seems impossible. But to prove his theory that Pollock knew what he was doing, Taylor got out the paint brushes and went to work…
Fractal analysis - Painting Mathematics of Jackson Pollock's paintings
This, I suppose, is why I find Pollock's paintings beautiful, even though I don't have much use for abstract expressionism otherwise. The patterns in his work mimic the patterns found in nature, in a very deep and abstract way.
So I'm not surprised that another great artist anticipated the atmosphere of Jupiter.
Fractals are attractive to people and even more if you can obscure it.
Sometimes I think artists (not just painters) are sourcing inspirations including fiction from something real, not just imagined and could have existed in the distant past or possibly the future or just some very far away place like another planet or another star.
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