Comment by verisimi | Hacker News Reader

Comment by verisimi | Hacker News Reader

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This person loves maths and art, and, we are told, is amazingly good at maths.

And yet, we see this pic:

https://d2r55xnwy6nx47.cloudfront.net/uploads/2024/03/Claire...

with this caption:

> Voisin sometimes relaxes by painting both original works (shown behind her) and copies of famous portraits, like the Amedeo Modigliani at bottom left.

She has colour co-ordinated pictures, with a material backdrop. This is then - badly - co-ordinated with the couch and its colours and patterns.

I'm genuinely surprised that this person's art choices and arrangements are so bad. She is meant to be a top tier mathematician + into art - so when these combine in her own life, can this really be the result?

I'm not critiquing her interior decor for the sake of being mean - I just find the example of art + reasoning that we see in the pic to be so inconsistent with the person that is being portrayed. Can this be how a top mathematician arranges things they love?

Isn't that a common complaint from fine artists?

That their work must be dumbed down to fit into a coffee table book or match the colour coordination of some interior design?

Art appreciation has many dimensions, and arguably the most meaningful ones are the most personal and authentic, and do not require justification to other people.

Yeah - its easy to explain and I'm not asking her for a justification.

I'm simply stating that here we are told is a top grade, highly-orderly brain with a great love of art, and artist herself - what a combination! And yet the arrangement of images and interior decoration is colour co-ordinated - and badly!

Its far from congruent with my expectations. The picture of the tree with misplaced branch is actually offensive to me - I would be getting rid of that picture.

It seems entirely plausible that there wasn’t a good setting just emphasizing her and all her art for an article photo, and that paintings were temporarily moved to create one - in which case what you’re picking up on would represent the photographer and a compromise with expediency rather than the mathematician.

I think she likes flora.

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