Seen/Unseen

A book of extraordinary scope and erudition subtitled 'Art, science and intuition from Leonardo to the Hubble telescope.' Martin Kemp is Professor of History of Art at Oxford with a long-standing interest in the interface between art and science, especially in relation to visual perception and the structural intuitions connecting these two fields. This leads to topics such as the way we visualise space, the relationship between wholes and parts, the generation of forms in nature and the mathematics of complexity represented in fractals. He begins with Renaissance techniques for representing perspectival space and moves through a number of exemplars including the architecture of Copernican astronomy, the diagrams of Kepler, the contemplative science of Goethe and D'Arcy Thompson's Growth and Form (Kemp and D'Arcy were both professors at St Andrews). Throughout the book, illustrations form part of the exposition and enrich the narrative. The Unseen part of the title refers to the way in which we image cellular and subatomic worlds. The book is a veritable tour de force and elegantly written besides. Essential reading for anyone interested in the art-science interface and who wants to explore more deeply the dominance of visual perception in our culture.