Hi Everyone,I was reading an essay on science and religion by a father of quantum physics, Werner Heisenberg. In the essay he recounts a story between two other physicists, Paul Dirac and Niels Bohr, who were at an exhibition that included works by Manet. In the story, Paul Dirac remarks that a spot on a Manet seascape is “not admissible” because it’s meaning and placement were unclear. I’ll quote the segment below -“Some time later, probably in Copenhagen, I told Niels about our conversation. He immediately jumped to the defense of the youngest member of our circle. “I consider it marvelous,” he said, “that Paul should be so uncompromising in his defense of all that can be expressed in clear and logical language. He believes that what can be said at all can be said clearly—or, as Wittgenstein put it, that ‘whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent.’ Whenever Dirac sends me a manuscript, the writing is so neat and free of corrections that merely looking at it is an aesthetic pleasure. If I suggest even minor changes, Paul becomes terribly unhappy and generally changes nothing at all. His work is, in any case, quite brilliant. Recently the two of us went to an exhibition which included a glorious gray-blue seascape by Manet. In the foreground was a boat, and beside it, in the water, a dark gray spot, whose meaning was not quite clear. Dirac said, ‘This spot is not admissible.’ A strange way of looking at art, but he was probably quite right. In a good work of art, just as in a good piece of scientific work, every detail must be laid down quite unequivocally; there can be no room for mere accident.”I’m quite curious what painting by Manet the story might be referring to. Of course, the exhibition could have been traveling so that whatever painting is mentioned might not be part of a permanent exhibition in Copenhagen where, I assume, this story took place probably between 1925-1930.I hope some of you might have some ideas.Thanks!PSThe full text of the essay can be found here (
https://ift.tt/2Jt5yjR). via /r/ArtHistory
https://ift.tt/3aw6hfX
