The Rationality of Art

By The Daily Dish

A classic from Isaac Asimov, posted by Jeremy Bruno:

How often people speak of art and science as though they were two entirely different things, with no interconnection. An artist is emotional, they think, and uses only his intuition; he sees all at once and has no need of reason. A scientist is cold, they think, and uses only his reason; he argues carefully step by step, and needs no imagination. That is all wrong. The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers. The true scientist is quite imaginative as well as rational, and sometimes leaps to solutions where reason can follow only slowly; if he does not, his science suffers.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2007/10/the-rationality-of-art/224842/