Analyzing Art and Aesthetics

This ninth volume of the Artefacts series explores how artists have responded to developments in science and technology, past and present. Rather than limiting the discussion to art alone, editors Anne Collins Goodyear and Margaret Weitekamp also asked contributors to consider aesthetics: the scholarly consideration of sensory responses to cultural objects. When considered as aesthetic objects, how do scientific instruments or technological innovations reflect and embody culturally grounded assessments about appearance, feel, and use? And when these objects become museum artifacts, what aesthetic factors affect their exhibition? Contributors found answers in the material objects themselves. This volume reconsiders how science, technology, art, and aesthetics impact one another.

Series Preface by Martin Collins Foreword by G. Wayne Clough Acknowledgments Introduction  Models as Aesthetic ObjectsSection Introduction Chapter 1 Using Science to Parse the Body: Some Artful Methods for Learning Medicine by Katherine Ott Chapter 2 The Disappearing Model: Harvard’s Glass Flowers and the Perils of Trompe l’Oeil by Ellery Foutch Chapter 3 “A Track Across What Is Now a Desert”: A. H. Munsell’s Quest for a System of Color by Erin McLeary Chapter 4 Models: Assembled Realities in Architecture and Engineering by Dirk Buhler Aesthetics of TechnologySection Introduction Chapter 5 Karsh: Image Maker:Bringing Artifacts to an Art Show by Bryan Dewalt Chapter 6 Softening the Orbiter:The Space Shuttle as Plaything and Icon by Margaret A. WeitekampChapter 7 The Kilmer Complex: Artificial-Tree Cellular Towers and Landscape Aesthetics by Bernard Mergen Chapter 8 Form Over Function? Technology, Aesthetics, and Identity at the National Museum of Scotland by Alison Taubman Chapter 9 Split + Splice: An Experiment in Scholarly Methodologyand Exhibition Making by Martha Fleming  Artists Interpret Science and TechnologySection Introduction Chapter 10 Mercurial Pigments and the Alchemy of John Singleton Copley’s Watson and the Shark by David BjelajacChapter 11 C. A. A. Dellschau: An Outsider Artist and the Dream of Flight by Tom D. Crouch Chapter 12 African Cultural Astronomy and the Arts: A Preliminary Enquiry by Christine Mullen KreamerChapter 13 The Mathematical Paintings of Crockett Johnson, 1965–1975: An Amateur and His Sources by Peggy Aldrich KidwellChapter 14 Art in the Context of a Science Institution: A Case Study of the Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences by J. D. TalasekChapter 15 Retaking the Universe: Art and Appropriated Astronomical Artifacts by Elizabeth A. Kessler Chapter 16 The Medium as Message in Contemporary Portraiture by Anne Collins Goodyear Collaboration in Action: Three Perspectives on the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship ProgramChapter 17 Contemporary Art Informed by Science: The Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship by Jane MiloschChapter 18 The Influence and Inspiration from Taking Part in the Smithsonian’s Artist Research Fellowship Program by Shih Chieh Huang Chapter 19 Light at the Museum by Lynne R. Parenti About the ContributorsIndex