More about Perspectiva, 2015
'The title of this piece comes from the Perspectiva Corporum Regularium or Perspective of the Regular Solids by Wenzel Jamnitzer, a 16th century Austrian goldsmith, designer, etcher and inventor of scientific instruments.
It describes the basic 5 regular platonic solids that were thought to be the building blocks of all matter.
'Jamnitzer created an extraordinary collection of both regular and semi-regular bodies in his Perspective of Regular Solids (1568) which, as he explained in his title, was based on Plato's Timaeus and Euclid's Elements. Accordingly, he associated the tetrahedron with fire, octahedron with air, hexahedron with earth, icosahedron with water and dodecahedron with heaven respectively. Using a 'particular new adroit method never before in use' he provided six regular, six truncated, six stellated and six double stellated variants for each of the regular solids to create a total of 120 versions which, as he pointed out in his long title, was but an 'introduction how, out of these five bodies, many other bodies of various kinds and shapes may be made and found without end'.'
The above piece was the starting point for my Perspectiva and was created to explore how mankind’s desire to explore the natural world through science and mathematics is often poetically and artistically expressed.
The structure of my piece is made up of chemical symbols for various elements, including clay, a material that has been employed throughout the past 40,000 years and documents the way in which craft and material knowledge are used to express changing human values.'
- Michael Eden
