The geometry of vision in the works of Escher and the music of Bach

Wednesday November 24 at 5 pm Rendezvous with Science Wednesday for the Friends of the Aquarium, in the Aquarium Hall in Genoa, with the conference “Wise Geometry in Escher’s Works and in Bach’s Music”.

Meet Maurizia Migliorini (Department of Italian and Roman Studies, Archeology, Arts and Entertainment, Deras, University of Genoa), Massimo Arduino (Associazione Teatro Carlo Felice of Genoa), Ettore Carletti (Department of Mathematics, DIMA, University of Genoa) Explore Like art, music and engineering, we have influenced the work of The great Mauritian Dutch artist Cornelius Escher (1898-1972).

Mauritius Cornelius Escher was an engraver artist who died in 1972, while Johann Sebastian Bach, organist and composer, lived in the first half of the eighteenth century. So Escher could have been influenced by Bach, but not the other way around. The logical-mathematical mechanism that is the basis of Maestro Eisenach’s music, and which prompted Escher to envision his staircase descending from the ceiling until resting awkwardly always on the same ceiling, is still a subject of study today.

Bach’s written mechanics, though ambiguous and complex at times, were always aimed at the aesthetic result, perhaps as unsettling as Escher’s erroneous views. The mystery is revealed only by listening. It is no coincidence that Bach, after his death, fell into oblivion for nearly a century: he was certainly far ahead of his contemporaries and perhaps even of us.

The conference also wants to highlight Escher’s deep geometric intuition in the field of non-Euclidean geometry, in particular hyperbolic geometry. Escher explains in a series of drawings how the hyperbolic world, which he certainly did not study in his mathematics course, was present “naturally” in his mind. So Escher’s geometry view does not stop at Euclidean geometry, but rather “rediscovers” non-Euclidean geometry not from the point of view of axioms (as mathematicians did) but from the point of view of technical inquiry.

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Maurizia Migliorini since 2001 Associate Professor of “Museology, Art Criticism and Restoration” and holder of the “History of Art Criticism” for the Certificate Course in Cultural Heritage Preservation at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy of the University of Genoa.

Massimo Arduino, musicologist and president of the Carlo Felice Theater Association, has divided his life between two passions: information technology and music. For his activity as a music communicator, he held, among other things, a biennial cycle of meetings – opera history and music conference series in cinema and from Broadway to Hollywood – at the Doge’s Palace.

He is one of the speakers in opera performances in season at the Carlo Felice Theater, where he also wrote theatrical programs. He is a co-founder of WEB TV for Carlo Felice Theater in 2010.

Ettore Carletti, emphasizing researcher in geometry in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Genoa, has been involved in number theory and geometry. In particular he studied number theory and its applications in spectral geometry. “

Entry is free until all available places have been exhausted.

In compliance with the guidelines of the latest anti-coronavirus decisions, it will be possible to participate in conferences only if they are equipped with a green card.

For information: Tel. 010/2345.279-323, [email protected]

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