The Anatomy of Landscape Art: Links to the Origins of Modern Geologic Thought and Democracy

LANCASTER, Pa. – Gary D. Rosenberg, associate professor of earth sciences at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis, will discuss "The Anatomy of Landscape Art: Links to the Origins of Geologic Thought and Democracy" on Tuesday, March 31 at 4:30 p.m. in Franklin & Marshall's Bonchek Lecture Hall, Barshinger Life Sciences & Philosophy Building.

The talk, sponsored by the Center for Liberal Arts and Society and the Bonchek Institute for Science and Reason in a Liberal Democracy, is free and open to the public.
Rosenberg studies art history for clues to help us understand the origin of modern geologic thought in Western Europe.  He has compared the geometric representation of spatial relationships that European Renaissance artists developed (see Leonardo da Vinci drawing of the Tuscany Hills above) with the meditative images that eastern cultures produced.

Rosenberg believes that these different ways of viewing nature help to explain why the Scientific Revolution took place first in Europe and not in the East.

A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, he earned his Ph.D. from U.C.L.A. in 1972, Rosenberg's research also includes mapping the distribution of trace elements in shells, teeth, bone with digital electron microscopy to determine how both physiology and environment influence skeletal form, crystallography, growth, and composition.

Rosenberg's accomplishments include his co-founding of Dino Fest, a science conference for the general public in 1994, and his chairmanship of the History of Geology division of the Geological Society of America in 2005-06.  He is the author of numerous publications, including the forthcoming "The Revolution in Geology from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment."

FOR MORE INFORMATION: MARCY DUBROFF (717) 291-3837
E-MAIL: MARCY.DUBROFF@FANDM.EDU
WEB: HTTP://WWW.FANDM.EDU/CLAS