Simple but not Simpler Art and Math

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy Oil on Canvas 1922




"Out of an infinity of designs, a mathematician chooses one pattern for beauty's sake and pulls it down to earth."     ---Marston Morse (1892-1977), IAS mathematician

As I read through a book on the history of the Institute for Advanced Study, I run across this quote above which captures my attention.  While my personal knowledge of math ends with Freshmen level "Calculus for Business," I immediately appreciate and understand this quote.  We have been living here at the Institute of Advanced Study for three months now.  As I walk from family housing passed Fuld Hall to join my husband for lunch, I imagine myself taking the same footpaths that Einstein or von Neumann or Oppenheimer or Godel might have taken.   I have come to realize that math research is a creative activity which produces abstract beauty. 

At the same time, we have had the good fortune of visiting my in-laws in New York City several times in this Fall. My mother-in-law introduced me to the Bauhaus approach to design. On our last visit, she generously gave me her collection of Bauhaus books (so she could buy new books).  So, I have also been pouring the history and designs of Gropius, Klee, Kandinsky, Albers and my favorite, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.

I can't help but see a similarity between the the Institute of Advanced Study and The Bauhaus School of design in Germany (both a community communities focused on the advancement of original thought and art). One explicit connection is the fact that the IAS family housing (the apartment that we live in now) was designed by Bauhaus designer Marcel Breuer. 

Connections between math and art have been made before, but I see a relationship between the specific design values of the Bauhaus School and math: the clean simple, yet bold lines of Bauhaus (see Maholy-Nagy's image above) and the idea that mathematical creatives find bold, simple patterns to explain complexity. The aesthetic value of math is simplicity. In reference to math, Einstein famously said, "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler" ...which makes for a very good design principle as well.