Einstein and early 20th Century avant-garde art: points of contact?

• Main Author: Martini, José X
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 30-05-2007
• Subjects: Physics - History and Philosophy of Physics; Physics - Popular Physics
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.0705.4378

Art history linked some early 20th Century avant-garde visual art movements
to contemporary systems of ideas in mathematics and theoretical physics. One of
the proposed connections is the one that might have existed between Cubism and
Relativity, or more precisely, between Picasso and Einstein. The suggested
links are similarity (in a weak version) or identity (in a strong version) in
matters of space, time and simultaneity. It is possible, however, that these
supposed links of Einstein and avant-garde art movements were more the product
of the imagination of historians and critics, than the result of connections
between painters and scientists. On the one hand, the visual arts (in contrast
to music, as far as we now) were of no interest to Einstein, who, moreover, did
not seem inclined or knowledgeable enough to appreciate advanced forms. On the
other hand, Einstein's theories fell outside the artists' ken, let alone their
understanding, although there are firm clues pointing to the fact that
repercussions of those theories in the press and in literary circles could have
fired the imagination of some artists.