The beauty of art is the result of complex intuitive and cognitive choices made by the artist. Understanding the genesis of these choices can be as illusive as the resulting imagery, but great art seems to initiate in us a curiosity about the ideas, methods, and materials used by the creators. Connoisseurship in this century has been enriched by the application of scientific-analysis methods. The results of these investigations into the physical properties of art have shed new light on their authenticity and individual histories as well as on the craft in general. Developments in the fields of physics and chemistry have allowed us to understand more about how we perceive and interact with works of art. The articles in this issue of MRS Bulletin describe the choices made by the artist and the techniques used to analyze works of art ranging from cave paintings to pastels on paper.

This issue of the Bulletin had its genesis in an interdisciplinary course at Cornell University, “Art, Isotopes, and Analysis.” Stan Taft and James Mayer taught the course with guest lectures by Maryan Ainsworth, Richard Newman, and Dusan Stulik. Michel Menu, Debora Mayer, Dusan Stulik, Richard Newman, and Arleyn Simon have carried on the guest-lecture tradition at Arizona State University (ASU). They also participated in a symposium, “Revelations Beneath the Surface: The Science of Art,” held June 14, 1996 at ASU. The photograph (Figure 1) shows the symposium speakers.

What we see when we look at a painting—the image and our belief in it—is the result of choices in painting media, physical components, and methods made by the painter prior to and during the painting process. To a great extent, the number of choices, the way they are made, and the sequence in which they are used are influenced by the environment of the artist. Availability of materials, training, common practice, the demand of imagery, scale, and placement of the completed painting all influence these choices. We certainly cannot discount skill and invention as contributing factors in the making of the object for they guide the use of materials, and when the artist is truly inspired, allow us to be transported into the life of the painting.

Many naturally occurring adhesive materials have been used throughout history to bind pigments in paintings. A number of synthetic materials have been added to these during the twentieth century.

Availability and tradition can influence the choice of binders made by artists. Probably the most widely used medium throughout history, animal glue, is also the most easily obtained. Glues made from the connective tissues or skins of local animals were major media in ancient Egyptian painting and in Chinese and Japanese painting, as well as in many other cultures throughout world history. In many cases, a variety of natural binders were available, and additional factors influenced the choice of binder by a culture. Different media have highly variable properties that affect how they are used in painting. Among these properties are solubility, the transparency or depth of color that is obtainable with a given pigment, and handling properties–how the paint flows, how quickly it dries, whether it can be applied in very thick and very thin layers, etc. Knowledge of the media utilized in paintings can help us understand the intentions of artists. Medieval European painting can be used as an example.

Paper is one of the most common supports for printed, painted, written, and drawn images. It is composed of fibers and other ingredients intertwined into a compact web, usually in the form of a thin sheet. Making paper involves combining fibers and fillers into a pulp slurry, depositing the suspension on a screen or roll, draining the water, and drying the pulp. Since the invention of paper about 2,000 years ago, the basic papermaking processes have gone unchanged, though hand papermaking has given way to a series of mechanical operations capable of manufacturing a continuous sheet of paper at phenomenal speeds. The selection of the fiber material and the method of treating the pulp during manufacture influence the qualities of the formed sheet of paper.

Salado-polychrome ceramics, marked by distinctive black on white with red designs (Figure 1), coincided with the development of platform-mound communities and were the result of an amalgamation of technological traditions that occurred during a time of population movements and cultural changes in the prehistoric American Southwest. Saladopolychrome ceramics were the most abundant decorated ware of the Classic period (A.D. 1275–1450) and have been recovered from sites in central Arizona, southwestern New Mexico, and northern Chihuahua, including the site of Casas Grandes. Several archaeologists have interpreted Salado-polychrome designs as symbols of a regional cult (Adams, Crown, Rice) that eased the integration of diverse populations in times of migration and social stress. The color scheme and designs of Salado polychrome are distinctive compared to other contemporary and earlier ceramics, making definition of its development difficult.

Prehistoric art is the oldest manifestation of the human desire to record the religion, myths, and spirituality of prehistoric people. The purpose of this article is by no means to propose an interpretation of this artistic expression but to carry out, within a multidisciplinary approach, research aimed at rediscovering the technical system by which the walls of the prehistoric caves were decorated.

It is yet unclear what type of new devices, if any, will replace the metaloxide field effect transistor in the sub 0.1-μm domain. Since in any case, the development of quantum-effect devices requires smaller and smaller dimensions for operation above temperatures of a few milliKelvin, we can safely assume that high-resolution patterning steps will always be required to manufacture the devices themselves. Alternative approaches (such as the use of self-assembling systems) have not yet reached a convincing level of demonstration. Furthermore we can assume that the complexity of the circuits will continue to increase because this is the true driving force of miniaturization. In order to process large amounts of information in a short amount of time, the processing circuit must be correspondingly complex. Hence the future quantum devices will continue the development pattern of modern electronics, leading to the fabrication of large chips with very small devices—that is, exceedingly large processing power. The apparent insatiability of our appetites for more memory and processing makes this prediction an almost certain evolution of the current technology.