Snowflakes, trees or neurons: these are some of nature's infinite fractal forms that have always inspired art.
A research group led by Chan San To, from the University of Okinawa in Japan, analyzed the works of the so-called dendritic art of the Japanese artist Akiko Nakayama to analyze their scientific aspects in the study published in the journal of the United States Academy of Sciences, Pnas .
“Painters have often used fluid mechanics to create unique compositions.
We saw this with David Alfaro Siqueiros, Jackson Pollock and Naoko Tosa, to name a few,” said study co-author Eliot Fried.
“In our laboratory – he added – we reproduce and study artistic techniques, to understand how the characteristics of the fluids influence the final result”.
The researchers focused in particular on Nakayama's dendritic painting, in which droplets composed of ink and alcohol are subjected to various forces, especially surface tension, the force that makes raindrops spherical and allows, for example, leaves to float on the surface. surface of a pond.
Due to surface tension it can be observed that in the presence of alcohol, which evaporates more rapidly than water, the surface tension is altered and the molecules of the fluid tend to be attracted towards the edge of the droplet, which has a higher surface tension than the its center.
This is called the Marangoni effect and is the same phenomenon responsible for the formation of wine tears: the droplets or streaks of wine that form inside a glass of wine after shaking or tilting it.
The study analyzed in detail various aspects related to this artistic technique: "Why should we limit science to technological progress alone?", commented Chan.
“I also like to explore its potential to drive artistic innovation.”
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