“Science, like art, is not a copy of nature but a re-creation of her.”

Part 1: "The Creative Mind", §9 (p. 20)
Science and Human Values (1956, 1965)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Science, like art, is not a copy of nature but a re-creation of her." by Jacob Bronowski?
Jacob Bronowski photo
Jacob Bronowski 79
Polish-born British mathematician 1908–1974

Related quotes

Ernst Gombrich photo

“Like art, science is born of itself, not of nature. There is no neutral naturalism. The artist, no less than the writer, needs a vocabulary before he can embark on a 'copy' of reality.”

Ernst Gombrich (1909–2001) art historian

E. H. Gombrich (1962), quoted in: Robert Maxwell Young. Mind, Brain, and Adaptation in the Nineteenth Century, 1970. p. 101.

Chuck Palahniuk photo
Auguste Rodin photo

“I obey nature, I never presume to command her. The first principal in art is to copy what one sees.”

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor

RODIN, AUGUSTE. L'Art. Entretiens réunis par Paul Gsell, 1911

Ayn Rand photo

“Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's individual value-judgments.”

Source: The Romantic Manifesto (1969), Chapter 1 ("The Psycho-Epistemology of Art")
Source: The Fountainhead

Marco Girolamo Vida photo

“Be sure, from nature never to depart;
To copy nature is the task of art.”

Praeterea haud lateat te nil conarier artem, Naturam nisi ut assimulet, propiusque sequatur. Hanc unam vates sibi proposuere magistram: Quicquid agunt, hujus semper vestigia servant.

Marco Girolamo Vida (1485–1566) Italian bishop

Book II, line 455
De Arte Poetica (1527)
Context: Be sure, from nature never to depart;
To copy nature is the task of art.
The noblest poets own her sovereign sway,
And ever follow where she leads the way.

Christopher Pitt photo
Gerhard Richter photo

“The idea that art copies nature is a fatal misconception. Art has always operated against nature and for reason.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

undated quotes, The Daily Practice of Painting, Writings (1962-1993)

Willem Roelofs photo

“.. and then it remains you to re-create your study, the fragment, into a painting. For remember; these are two [different] things: Nature is the material from which we must take. But don't be fooled by the modern theories, that imitating, copying nature would be 'everything'. The goal, the Art's aim is …. to move..”

Willem Roelofs (1822–1897) Dutch painter and entomologist (1822-1897)

translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek
(original Dutch: citaat van Willem Roelofs, in het Nederlands:) ..en dan blijft u over, om de studie, het fragment, tot schilderij te herscheppen. Want vergeet niet, dat dat twee [verschillende] dingen zijn: De natuur is de stof, waaruit wij moeten putten. Maar laat u niet door de moderne (Jeltes: hij bedoelde hier waarschijnlijk de Belgische neo-impressionistische) theoriën wijsmaken, dat het navolgen, het copieeren der natuur 'alles' is. Het doel, het streven van de Kunst is.. ..te ontroeren..
Quote of Roelofs, in a letter to his pupil Frans Smissaert, 8 June 1886; as cited in Willem Roelofs (1822—1922), by Mr. H. F. W. Jeltes, in Maandschrift Elsevierweekblad... http://maandschrift.elsevierweekblad.nl/EGM/1922/01/19220101/EGM-19220101-0268/story.pdf, Jan. 1922, p. 222
1880's

Maurice Denis photo

“Art is no longer a visual sensation that we gather, like a photograph, as it were, of nature. No, it is a creation of our spirit, for which nature is only the occasion.”

Maurice Denis (1870–1943) French painter

Quote of Denis, 1909: from Bouillon 2006, pp. 17-18; as cited on Wikipedia: Maurice Denis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Denis - reference [9]
1890 - 1920

Walter Raleigh (professor) photo

“Definition and division are the watchwords of science, where art is all for composition and creation.”

Walter Raleigh (professor) (1861–1922) British academic

Style https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=lK0VAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA41 (1897), p. 41

Related topics