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This is a wonderful and fascinating still life by Juan Sanchez Cotán: http://www.sdmart.org/art/quince-cabbage-melon-and-cucumber

It is thought by many art historians that Cotán used a mathematical formula to determine the heights at which the various items would appear. For all I know this may be the case -- it would seem only appropriate given the name of the artist -- but I once read part of a book by a very respectable art historian (whose name I have maddeningly forgotten but I'm working on it) who said what the formula was. His evidence was just the picture itself and not any surviving record of how it was painted. But of course, given that the heights of the items are not precisely determined (anything like), it is clear that any number of curves could be declared to fit. This is not exactly misuse of a theorem but it was certainly misuse of mathematics, similar to finding the golden ratio everywhere but a bit more sophisticated.

Added: I've tracked it down now. The critic is Norman Bryson and he says this: "In relation to the quince, the cabbage appears to come forward slightly; the melon is further forward than the quince, the melon slice projects out beyond the ledge, and the cucumber overhangs it still further. The arc is therefore not on the same plane as its co-ordinates, it curves in three dimensions: it is a true hyperbola, of the type produced when a cone is viewed in oblique section." I haven't found more of the quotation, but I seem to remember that it was quite important to Bryson that it really was a hyperbola and not, say, an exponential decay. (As a matter of fact, looking at the picture again I am not convinced that the items form a nice curve of any kind: the cabbage is too far to the left and too near to being directly under the apple. And the relationship of the string of the cabbage with the leaves of the apple leads me to doubt whether the curve lies in an oblique plane, or indeed any plane, as he suggests.)

This is a wonderful and fascinating still life by Juan Sanchez Cotán: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/monarchy-enlightenment/baroque-art1/spain/a/juan-sanchez-de-cotn-quince-melon-and-cucumber

It is thought by many art historians that Cotán used a mathematical formula to determine the heights at which the various items would appear. For all I know this may be the case -- it would seem only appropriate given the name of the artist -- but I once read part of a book by a very respectable art historian (whose name I have maddeningly forgotten but I'm working on it) who said what the formula was. His evidence was just the picture itself and not any surviving record of how it was painted. But of course, given that the heights of the items are not precisely determined (anything like), it is clear that any number of curves could be declared to fit. This is not exactly misuse of a theorem but it was certainly misuse of mathematics, similar to finding the golden ratio everywhere but a bit more sophisticated.

Added: I've tracked it down now. The critic is Norman Bryson and he says this: "In relation to the quince, the cabbage appears to come forward slightly; the melon is further forward than the quince, the melon slice projects out beyond the ledge, and the cucumber overhangs it still further. The arc is therefore not on the same plane as its co-ordinates, it curves in three dimensions: it is a true hyperbola, of the type produced when a cone is viewed in oblique section." I haven't found more of the quotation, but I seem to remember that it was quite important to Bryson that it really was a hyperbola and not, say, an exponential decay. (As a matter of fact, looking at the picture again I am not convinced that the items form a nice curve of any kind: the cabbage is too far to the left and too near to being directly under the apple. And the relationship of the string of the cabbage with the leaves of the apple leads me to doubt whether the curve lies in an oblique plane, or indeed any plane, as he suggests.)

This is a wonderful and fascinating still life by Juan Sanchez Cotán: http://www.friendsofart.net/static/images/art1/juan-sanchez-cotan-still-life-with-quince-cabbage-melon-and-cucumber.jpg

It is thought by many art historians that Cotán used a mathematical formula to determine the heights at which the various items would appear. For all I know this may be the case -- it would seem only appropriate given the name of the artist -- but I once read part of a book by a very respectable art historian (whose name I have maddeningly forgotten but I'm working on it) who said what the formula was. His evidence was just the picture itself and not any surviving record of how it was painted. But of course, given that the heights of the items are not precisely determined (anything like), it is clear that any number of curves could be declared to fit. This is not exactly misuse of a theorem but it was certainly misuse of mathematics, similar to finding the golden ratio everywhere but a bit more sophisticated.

Added: I've tracked it down now. The critic is Norman Bryson and he says this: "In relation to the quince, the cabbage appears to come forward slightly; the melon is further forward than the quince, the melon slice projects out beyond the ledge, and the cucumber overhangs it still further. The arc is therefore not on the same plane as its co-ordinates, it curves in three dimensions: it is a true hyperbola, of the type produced when a cone is viewed in oblique section." I haven't found more of the quotation, but I seem to remember that it was quite important to Bryson that it really was a hyperbola and not, say, an exponential decay. (As a matter of fact, looking at the picture again I am not convinced that the items form a nice curve of any kind: the cabbage is too far to the left and too near to being directly under the apple. And the relationship of the string of the cabbage with the leaves of the apple leads me to doubt whether the curve lies in an oblique plane, or indeed any plane, as he suggests.)

This is a wonderful and fascinating still life by Juan Sanchez Cotán: http://www.sdmart.org/art/quince-cabbage-melon-and-cucumber

It is thought by many art historians that Cotán used a mathematical formula to determine the heights at which the various items would appear. For all I know this may be the case -- it would seem only appropriate given the name of the artist -- but I once read part of a book by a very respectable art historian (whose name I have maddeningly forgotten but I'm working on it) who said what the formula was. His evidence was just the picture itself and not any surviving record of how it was painted. But of course, given that the heights of the items are not precisely determined (anything like), it is clear that any number of curves could be declared to fit. This is not exactly misuse of a theorem but it was certainly misuse of mathematics, similar to finding the golden ratio everywhere but a bit more sophisticated.

Added: I've tracked it down now. The critic is Norman Bryson and he says this: "In relation to the quince, the cabbage appears to come forward slightly; the melon is further forward than the quince, the melon slice projects out beyond the ledge, and the cucumber overhangs it still further. The arc is therefore not on the same plane as its co-ordinates, it curves in three dimensions: it is a true hyperbola, of the type produced when a cone is viewed in oblique section." I haven't found more of the quotation, but I seem to remember that it was quite important to Bryson that it really was a hyperbola and not, say, an exponential decay. (As a matter of fact, looking at the picture again I am not convinced that the items form a nice curve of any kind: the cabbage is too far to the left and too near to being directly under the apple. And the relationship of the string of the cabbage with the leaves of the apple leads me to doubt whether the curve lies in an oblique plane, or indeed any plane, as he suggests.)

This is a wonderful and fascinating still life by Juan Sanchez Cotán: http://www.friendsofart.net/static/images/art1/juan-sanchez-cotan-still-life-with-quince-cabbage-melon-and-cucumber.jpg

It is thought by many art historians that Cotán used a mathematical formula to determine the heights at which the various items would appear. For all I know this may be the case -- it would seem only appropriate given the name of the artist -- but I once read part of a book by a very respectable art historian (whose name I have maddeningly forgotten but I'm working on it) who said what the formula was. His evidence was just the picture itself and not any surviving record of how it was painted. But of course, given that the heights of the items are not precisely determined (anything like), it is clear that any number of curves could be declared to fit. This is not exactly misuse of a theorem but it was certainly misuse of mathematics, similar to finding the golden ratio everywhere but a bit more sophisticated.

Added: I've tracked it down now. The critic is Norman Bryson and he says this: "In relation to the quince, the cabbage appears to come forward slightly; the melon is further forward than the quince, the melon slice projects out beyond the ledge, and the cucumber overhangs it still further. The arc is therefore not on the same plane as its co-ordinates, it curves in three dimensions: it is a true hyperbola, of the type produced when a cone is viewed in oblique section." I haven't found more of the quotation, but I seem to remember that it was quite important to Bryson that it really was a hyperbola and not, say, an exponential decay.

This is a wonderful and fascinating still life by Juan Sanchez Cotán: http://www.friendsofart.net/static/images/art1/juan-sanchez-cotan-still-life-with-quince-cabbage-melon-and-cucumber.jpg

It is thought by many art historians that Cotán used a mathematical formula to determine the heights at which the various items would appear. For all I know this may be the case -- it would seem only appropriate given the name of the artist -- but I once read part of a book by a very respectable art historian (whose name I have maddeningly forgotten but I'm working on it) who said what the formula was. His evidence was just the picture itself and not any surviving record of how it was painted. But of course, given that the heights of the items are not precisely determined (anything like), it is clear that any number of curves could be declared to fit. This is not exactly misuse of a theorem but it was certainly misuse of mathematics, similar to finding the golden ratio everywhere but a bit more sophisticated.

Added: I've tracked it down now. The critic is Norman Bryson and he says this: "In relation to the quince, the cabbage appears to come forward slightly; the melon is further forward than the quince, the melon slice projects out beyond the ledge, and the cucumber overhangs it still further. The arc is therefore not on the same plane as its co-ordinates, it curves in three dimensions: it is a true hyperbola, of the type produced when a cone is viewed in oblique section." I haven't found more of the quotation, but I seem to remember that it was quite important to Bryson that it really was a hyperbola and not, say, an exponential decay. (As a matter of fact, looking at the picture again I am not convinced that the items form a nice curve of any kind: the cabbage is too far to the left and too near to being directly under the apple. And the relationship of the string of the cabbage with the leaves of the apple leads me to doubt whether the curve lies in an oblique plane, or indeed any plane, as he suggests.)