"A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas. ...The mathematician's patterns, like the painter's or the poet's, must be beautiful; the ideas, like the colours or the words, must fit together in a harmonious way." - G.H. Hardy

I have always thought that there lies an artistic quality within mathematics.  It is not necessarily the geometric or visual application of it, such as might be found in performing constructions or within the chaotic beauty of the Mandelbrot set.  It is a much more elusive, indefinable and taunting characteristic that cannot be seen, but only sensed.  My strongest awareness of it occurred while in graduate school, when I learned the art of creating a proof by placing the elements of mathematics, symbols, definitions, and theorems, within the construct of a logical argument.  This required a great amount of imagination and intuition.  It is similar to the process that a painter might follow in organizing the colors of their palette onto a canvas to create a cohesive image.  In fact, I always felt that QED really meant "voila".

The inspiration for this page was a past trip to the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.  I was quite taken with the French Impressionists, and the works of Claude Monet in particular.  The background images of this site are all created from elements of his paintings.  The music playing in the background is a jazz piece entitled "Afternoon in Paris".