Soap Bubbles (left) shows photographer Berenice
Abbott's ability to create scientifically accurate images that are
also aesthetically beautiful. An exhibition of her scientific photos
is on display at the Art Museum.
According to Albert Einstein, "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science." He could have found no better exemplar of this belief than the photographs of Berenice Abbott; while illustrating complex scientific ideas, they endure as quietly beautiful works of art. Fifteen of Abbott's black- and-white photographs are on view in Berenice Abbott: The Camera Looks at Science, an exhibition at the Mount Holyoke Art Museum through April 4.
While one might not typically think of golf balls or soap bubbles as particularly appealing, Abbott's camera is able to suspend time and focus on the beauty of the unseen and ordinary. In Path of a Moving Ball, the flight path of a bouncing golf ball becomes a graduated series of graceful arches. In Soap Bubbles (above), we see the structure of bubbles come to life as a network of geometric forms filled with light and texture. Often, opposing forces such as stillness and motion seemed to be suggested simultaneously in Abbott's photographs.
Best known for her images of New York, Berenice Abbott (1898 - 1991) was also a pioneer in the field of scientific photography. "I took courses in chemistry and electricity and saw possibilities that were totally unsuspected," she recalled. "These things were so beautiful and pristine. I also saw that the pictures had to be better ... to show what was really happening. The scientists were using the worst illustrations possible." Her pictures demonstrate the effects of magnetic fields, the movement of objects in space, patterns of light and water waves, and the bending of light rays, proving that, in her words, "Photography is the medium uniquely qualified to unite art with science."
Berenice Abbott first began to illustrate scientific phenomena with her cameras in 1939. She worked alone for nearly twenty years, and it was only after the launching of Sputnik in 1957, and the ensuing nationwide initiative to improve science education, that the scientific community exhibited some interest in her work. Hired by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1958, she spent the next three years designing experimental equipment, two cameras, and special lighting systems in order to produce thousands of images documenting scientific principles. In addition to being a photographer, Abbott was an author, inventor, photographic educator, and historian.
The photographs in the MHC exhibition range from the 1940s through the 1960s. The portfolios from which they are drawn were published by Parasol Press in 1982, and were a gift to the museum from Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Lasser (Ruth Pollack '47).
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