Images of Polyhedera in Fine Arts The intriguing three-dimensional solids with polygonal faces, called polyhedra, gain more and more popularity in modern architecture and design. At the same time, the beautiful mathematics of polyhedra is very well studied and goes back to the classics of Ancient Greece. Here we list some examples of appearance of polyhedra in fine arts, while mathematical discussion of basics of regular polyhedra (Platonic solids) and an art project of creating an icosohedron out of paper plates can be found in Chapter 2 of this book.
Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art in Manhattan, KS (online catalogue)
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One of the featured works in the collection of the museum is represented by a gigantic icosohedron created by
- Alan Shields (United States, 1944-2005)
Kansas Meatball, 1985-1998
Object number: 2007.111
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City (online catalogue)
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No-special-name polyhedra appear in the following artworks:
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Leo Krikorian (b. 1923)
570 EV
Object number: 2003.21.1 -
R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983)
Now You See It; Now You Don't, folio of silkscreen posters, 1976
Object number: 2009.79.6
World collections
- Intarsia polyhedra feature beautiful images of several polyhedra,
including an icosahedron. This artwork from the church of Santa
Maria in Organo, Verona (Italy) was executed in 1505 by the Italian
artist Giovanni da Verona.
Image 1 of Intarsia polyhedra in Web Gallery of Art
Image 2 of Intarsia polyhedra in Web Gallery of Art - In the Portrait of Luca Pacioli (ca. 1500) attributed to Jacopo de
Barbari from the Capodimonte Museum, Naples (Italy), one can see
models of a rhombicuboctahedron and a dodecahedron.
Image of the painting in Web Gallery of Art
Capodimonte Museum website - Leonardo da Vinci created illustrations for Luca Pacioli's book On
the Divine Proportion (1509) with numerous images of polyhedra.
Full text of Divine Proportione at archive.org - Albrecht Durer's engraving Melencolia I (1514) features an image
of a polyhedron.
Image of the Engraving form the online catalogue of the Minneapolis Institute of Art. - The background of the painting The Sacrament of the Last Supper
(1955) by Salvador Dali at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC has the shape of a huge dodecahedron.
Image of the painting form the online catalogue of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC - The artist Maurits Cornelis Escher is especially loved by mathematicians for magical tessellations and perspective illusions. Escher has
incorporated images of polyhedra in many lithographs.
The official website of M. Escher
Using this occasion, we also recommend to have a look at mathematical
the project
Escher and the Droste effect .
- The geodesic dome, one of the most esteemed ideas of Richard Buckminster Fuller
is a special kind of polyhedron approximating a sphere.
About geodesics domes at the official website of Buckminster Fuller Institute