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Thank you again, Susan--this time for highlighting the artistic-scientific work of Felice Frankel. Frankel's images are astonishing and clarifying in all sorts of dimensions--including the question we've been exploring here: what distinguishes the work of humanists from that of scientists? “I don’t call it art,” Ms. Frankel said. “When it’s art, it’s more about the creator, not necessarily the concept in the image.”

Her comment suggests that one way to distinguish the two forms of inquiry would be to say that art is about self-expression, while science is about representing the world outside the self. Hm...

how stable is that cut? Probably no more than those we identified separating concrete from abstract, observation from interpretation, primary from secondary stories--that is: useful in the short term, but always challengeable and encouraging challenge. For example, Frankel's longtime collaborator, who is a chemist, says, “She has a wonderful sense of design and color. It is hard to say she is not an artist.”

(Which is to say, she can abstract from the concrete....???
Concretize the abstract???)