“It would be an error… to suppose that science makes the artist; yet it lends to him the most powerful assistance.”

— Adolphe Quetelet

Preface of M. Quetelet
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)
Context: It would be an error... to suppose that science makes the artist; yet it lends to him the most powerful assistance. In general, it is difficult to keep it within due limits; and I shall even freely admit that Albert Durer, in his work upon the proportions of the human frame, has imparted to it a certain scientific dryness, which lessens its utility. One finds there more of the geometer than the artist, and the geometer, moreover, such as he was at a time when it had not yet been discovered how much the rules of style enhance the value of scientific works, and, above all, of those which appertain at the same time to the domain of the fine arts.

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Adolphe Quetelet 52

Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociolo… 1796–1874

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