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Concinnitas

2014
Not on view
The portfolio Concinnitas is the result of a collaboration between Dan Rockmore (Professor of Mathematics, Dartmouth College); ten renowned mathematicians and physicists; the publisher Robert Feldman (who earlier produced seminal Conceptual art print portfolios); and the New York printing house Harlan & Weaver. It takes its title from a term used by the Renaissance artist and architect Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) to indicate the proportions of beauty. Each print represents a participant’s answer to Rockmore’s prompt to represent the "most beautiful mathematical expression" they had encountered in their work or study. Rendered so as to mimic the aesthetics of a handwritten equation, such as those immortalized in photographs of Albert Einstein’s blackboard, Concinnitas also echoes Conceptual artists’ engagement with language and systems. While to the layperson the mathematical content may remain enigmatic or require further research, the prints persist on their own as powerful visual signs communicating the gesture and intentions of their creators.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Concinnitas
  • Author: Daniel Rockmore (American, born 1961)
  • Artist: Michael Atiyah (British, London 1929–2019 Edinburgh)
  • Artist: Enrico Bombieri (Italian, born 1940)
  • Artist: Simon Donaldson (British, born 1957)
  • Artist: Freeman Dyson (American, born England, Crowthorne 1923–2020 near Princeton, New Jersey)
  • Artist: Richard Karp (American, born 1935)
  • Artist: Peter Lax (American, born Budapest, 1926)
  • Artist: David Bryant Mumford (American, born 1937)
  • Artist: Murray Gell-Mann (American, born 1929)
  • Artist: Stephen Smale (American, born 1930)
  • Artist: Steven Weinberg (American, born 1933)
  • Printer: Harlan & Weaver, Inc. (American)
  • Publisher: Parasol Press Ltd.
  • Date: 2014
  • Medium: Aquatint
  • Dimensions: Each Plate: 22 × 30 in. (55.9 × 76.2 cm)
    Each Sheet: 26 1/8 × 31 5/8 in. (66.4 × 80.3 cm)
  • Classifications: Prints, Portfolios
  • Credit Line: John B. Turner Fund, 2015
  • Object Number: 2015.518
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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