Art and Science: Articulating a Contemporary Dialogue Using the Perspective of the Renaissance (Relation Galileo-Cigoli Rediscovered)

By Marcos Cesar Danhoni Neves, Josie Agatha Parrilha da Silva

By two research groups, INTERART (Interaction between Art, Science and Education: Dialogues
in Visual Arts) and PEFAHC (Research in Physics Teaching, Astronomy and History of Science),
started five years ago, motivated by the celebration of the 400 years of the invention of the telescope,
a dialogue that became permanent at undergraduate and postgraduate with our inquiries about the
development of art and science from Renaissance to Contemporary. We take as a basis the
relationship between Galileo Galiei (the “scientist”) and Lodovico Cardiʼs Cigoli (the “Artist”). By
analyzing the construction of the works “Siderius Nuncius,” “Madonna Assunta” (fresco at the
Paolinaʼs dome in Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome) and “Discorsi Intorno alle Macchie Solari e loro
Accidenti” discovered an intercultural universe where art and science were linked in a harmonious
and indissoluble way. Thus, the old nomenclature: artist and scientist should be changed to
“scientist-artist” and “artist-scientist.” This reflection was inaugurated with the “Paranaenseʼs
Workshops of Art-Science/International Meeting on Art-Science” to provide space for interaction
between art and science in dialogue with different audiences. In this trajectory we wrote several
books, built blogs and created the “Brazilian Review of Art-Science,” a magazine devoted to the
permanent art-science dialogue. Furthermore, we initiated a more permanent and educational
vision when we contribute to the creation of the Bachelorʼs Degree in Visual Arts at the State
University of Maringá and introduced a discipline named “Intercultural Dialogues I and II;” and,
similarly, in the Bachelorʼs Dg. in Visual Arts from the State University of Ponta Grossa the
discipline “Dialogues Art-Science.” In the stricto sensu academic area, we create, in the PostGraduate
(Masters, PhD) in Science Education and Technology, Federal Technological UniversityParaná,
Ponta Grossa, a researchʼs line for “Art, Science and Teknè: intercultural dialogues” with
six postgraduate students working on research of different art-science relationship.