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In The Shock of Recognition, Lewis Pyenson uses a method called Historical Complementarity to identify the motif of non-figurative abstraction in modern art and science. He identifies the motif in Picasso’s and Einstein’s educational environments. He shows how this motif in domestic furnishing and in urban lighting set the stage for Picasso’s and Einstein’s professional success before 1914. He applies his method to intellectual life in Argentina, using it to address that nation’s focus on an inventory of the natural world until the 1940s, its adoption of non-figurative art and nuclear physics in the middle of the twentieth century, and attention to landscape painting and the wonder of nature at the end of the century.
Price: $221.00
Pages: 652
Publisher: Brill
Imprint: Brill
Series: Nuncius Series
Publication Date:
11 December 2020
ISBN: 9789004325722
Format: Hardcover
“[…] this impressive book, which clearly is the culmination of many years' research and writing […] will make an invaluable addition to any scientist's library.”
- Raymond L. Lee Jr., American Journal of Physics 91, 327 (2023)
"I believe this brawny book makes a major contribution to our understanding of how different disciplines, seemingly isolated, can express similar patterns of thought or concepts. Highly recommended."
- David R. Topper, Senior Scholar in History of Art, University of Winnipeg, in: Amazon.ca book review (May 30, 2021)
"A esa mirada analítica, aplicada a dos campos fundamentales de la actividad humana [el de la historia de la ciencia y el de la historia de las artes plásticas], hay que concebirla como un dispositivo de exploración y descubrimiento de motivos, es decir, complejos significantes de nociones y prácticas detectables tanto en la indagación científica cuanto en la creación estética. La forma en que Pyenson presenta los antecedentes de su propuesta metodológica y cognitiva, a la que él llama “complementariedad historiográfica”, es exhaustiva, precisa y generosa."
- José Emilio Burucúa, Universidad Nacional de San Martín, In: Prismas - Revista De Historia Intelectual, 26(1) (2022), 285–286.
- Raymond L. Lee Jr., American Journal of Physics 91, 327 (2023)
"I believe this brawny book makes a major contribution to our understanding of how different disciplines, seemingly isolated, can express similar patterns of thought or concepts. Highly recommended."
- David R. Topper, Senior Scholar in History of Art, University of Winnipeg, in: Amazon.ca book review (May 30, 2021)
"A esa mirada analítica, aplicada a dos campos fundamentales de la actividad humana [el de la historia de la ciencia y el de la historia de las artes plásticas], hay que concebirla como un dispositivo de exploración y descubrimiento de motivos, es decir, complejos significantes de nociones y prácticas detectables tanto en la indagación científica cuanto en la creación estética. La forma en que Pyenson presenta los antecedentes de su propuesta metodológica y cognitiva, a la que él llama “complementariedad historiográfica”, es exhaustiva, precisa y generosa."
- José Emilio Burucúa, Universidad Nacional de San Martín, In: Prismas - Revista De Historia Intelectual, 26(1) (2022), 285–286.
Lewis Pyenson is Emeritus Professor of History at Western Michigan University, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and former graduate dean. Widely published in the history of modern science, he is also a novelist and sculptor.