Fomenko

Taking some time to explore the Mathematik und Kunst (Mathematics and Art) section of Prof. Dr. Udo Hebisch’s Mathematischen Café site (my source for the Lorenz Stoer images posted here last week), I discovered the graphic work of contemporary mathematical artist Anatoly Timofeevich Fomenko (1945-), from which I’ve picked out the following small selection:

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The genre of mathematical art seems, regrettably, to be a marginal one, with Escher’s visualisations of tesselation and symmetry still perhaps its most recognizable modern expression.

I do not really think of myself as an artist. I am a mathematician. To me, my drawings are photographs of some strange and interesting mathematical world - A.T. Fomenko.

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Anatoly Fomenko is a Soviet topologist with a special gift for expressing abstract mathematical concepts through art. Some of his work resembles that of M.C. Escher in its meticulous rendering of shapes and patterns, while other pieces are more visceral expressions of mathematical ideas. Stimulating to the imagination and to the eye, his rich and evocative work is interpreted and appreciated in various ways - mathematically, aesthetically, and emotionally - AMS blurb about the artist.

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Lastly, here is a striking variation on the theme of Albrecht Dürer’s celebrated engraving Melancholia I: Fomenko’s ‘Anti-Dürer’. Clicking on these images will open much larger versions of the same.