Engineering Artistry

Two recent articles on the intersection of engineering and art.  The first is from the student newspaper (Technique) at Georgia Tech University by Madison Lee (February 24, 2012 - - Engineering perceived as art form by many).  Engineering and art may not necessarily be separate things.  Engineers must consider end users and build to appease them.  The Tech article has the following observations:

"I find that the distinction between engineering and architecture, which we might today think of as the distinction between engineering and art, robs from both fields," said Benjamin Flowers, Associate Professor in the School of Architecture.

"Art can and has been found in engineering.  Works of art seek to impose on the viewer the same intense, complex experience as do high bridges, vast factories, intricate industrial machinery . . . or other things we might call engineering," Flowers said.

Though the design aspect inherent in engineering can enlighten and impress as much as any piece of fine art, it remains true that engineers generally see the whole as a sum of its parts while artists focus more on the big picture.

The second article is by Stuart Walesh in the January 2012 ASCE Journal of Leadership and Management in Engineering (Art for Engineers: Encouraging More Right-Mode Thinking).  Walesh provides his reflections on engineering, art, drawing, and his amateur artist career - - all in the context of engineering and the need for additional right brain training and thinking.  Walesh writes the following:

In my view, enhanced observation - that is, more seeing and, relatively speaking, less looking - is an inevitable byproduct of practicing the visual arts.  Really seeing, not just casually looking, gradually becomes habitual for artists.  When looking at anything, artists, relative to others, tend to see values plus shapes and sub-shapes.  As Oliver Wendell Holmes noted, once our mind is stretched in a new way, it never returns to its original dimensions, and so it is once we practice the visual arts.

So what has this got to do with engineering?  Improved seeing, whether literally or possibly, by extension, figuratively, further enables an engineering student or practitioner to more completely and accurately define an issue to be resolved, a problem to be solved, or an opportunity to be pursued.  If it is true that a problem well defined is half solved, an issue, problem, or opportunity more completely and accurately seen, both physically and figuratively, is half resolved, solved, and pursued.  Engineering students and practitioners are likely to gain valuable enhanced vision as a result of participating in freehand drawings or other visual arts.