1 / 11

Strictly Platonic teaching mathematics through sculpture

Strictly Platonic teaching mathematics through sculpture. Steven Zides Wofford College zidessb@wofford.edu. Why talk about Sculpture??. Sculpture : The art of making two- or three-dimensional representative or abstract forms , esp. by carving stone

kirima
Download Presentation

Strictly Platonic teaching mathematics through sculpture

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Strictly Platonicteaching mathematics through sculpture Steven Zides Wofford College zidessb@wofford.edu

  2. Why talk about Sculpture?? Sculpture: The art of making two- or three-dimensional representative or abstract forms, esp. by carving stone or wood or by casting metal or plaster. Key Benefits: • Physical • Tactile • Ubiquitous • Personal

  3. Anthropomorphic Representation“Classical Sculpture” The Townley Discobolus Michelangelo: Pieta

  4. Metaphoric Representation“Cubist/Futurist Sculpture” Umberto Boccioni: Bottle in Space Picasso: Head of a Woman

  5. Platonic Representation“ Suprematist/Constructavist Sculpture” Ivan Puni: Suprematist Relief-Sculpture Max Bill: Endless Ribbon

  6. Morton C. Bradley Jr. (1912-2004) • Attended Harvard in the late 1920’s • Studied art collections in Europe in • the mid - 1930’s • A painting conservationist by • profession • Interests in linguistics, color theory, • and musical composition • Began creating algorithmic • sculptures in the 1960’s “When Bradley took up making sculpture, he defined a language of vision with an abstract vocabulary of symmetrically forms and pure color, combined according to prescribed rules of repetition, reflection, and rotation.” --- Gamwell Morton C. Bradley Jr: Firebird

  7. Additional Works by Bradley Morton C. Bradley Jr: Regatta Morton C. Bradley Jr: Nautilus

  8. Sculpture Related Activity I This sculpture is the amalgamation of nested Platonic solids. Instructions Get into your group and have the computer people research what it takes to be a Platonic solid. Also, how many of these solids exist and what do they look like? Now see if your group can determine which of the these solids occur in the sculpture. Homework Read the article on Johannes Kepler. In what way was Kepler’s work influenced by the Platonic solids? Relate Kepler’s work back to the sculpture considered in class. Morton C. Bradley Jr: Homage to Plato

  9. Sculpture Related Activity II This sculpture is a torus created by the twisting of a hypocycloid. The pattern on the bronze surface is known as Peano-Hilbert space filling curve. Instructions Get into your group and have your computer people research the terms Mobius strip and hypocycloid. How is this sculpture similar and different from the Mobius strip? Using the Play-Doh provided, see if your group can create such an umbilic torus. If you ran your finger along the cusp (vertex) of the sculpture, how many times do you need to go around to get back to where you started? What shape would you need to twist if you wanted this number to be 5? Helaman Ferguson: Umbilic Torus NC

  10. Useful Resources • Gamwell, Lynn. Color and Form. Bloomington: Indiana • University Press, 2012 • Emmer, Michele. The Visual Mind II. Cambridge: MIT Press, • 2005 • Peterson, Ivars. Fragments of Infinity. New York: John • Wiley & Sons, 2001 • Ferguson, Helaman. Mathematics in Stone and Bronze. • Erie: Meridian Creative Group, 1994

  11. Strictly Platonicteaching mathematics through sculpture Steven Zides Wofford College zidessb@wofford.edu

More Related