PAINTING: "A visiting Bishop"
orejones,
Yes, the painting, "Optical experiment with "g" is (fairly closely) based on the drawing of his arm and hand Newton made in his notes while doing his optical experiments at Cambridge in the early 1660's. I only expanded the drawing to include Newton's body and the room and a fuax picture frame. Newton found that by pressing on the eyeball, he could stimulate colours- and he was so enthusiastic about this effect he actually poked a stick hehind his eyeball. The stick in Newton's drawing is labelled "g". In Westfalls' excellent biography of Newton, he includes this drawing and muses that it seems impossible Newton wasn't blinded by these experiments.
I sued this episode in Newton's life to theatrically depict an aspect of the detached relation to mind to body image. And, I think science has a lot to answer for in establishes this disconnect in general society. interconnects between.
You must be a scholar to recognise this scene- are you especially interested in the history of science and/or technology/science issues? In the late 90's I did a series of 35 paintings that were intended to illustrate a book on Natural Philosophy. As some may know, but which is counter-intuitive to popular history, Newton was an alchemist far longer than he was a mathematician and physicist. - I now have 600 pages of notes, a 68 page outline, and 180 pages of text, (~20%) but after 15 years' work whether I'll ever finish is a question,..
The painting above is from that series-a thought about the Internet- a "series of tubes"*** which I believe is as important as the invention of printing- but far more dangerous socially and culturally.
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Cheers,
Bambi B
